Thanks Ancestry! Spelling Doesn't Count Remix

Lest you think I HATE Ancestry.com, let me assure you that I don't HATE them. No, it is more of a love/hate relationship. After all, if it weren't for Ancestry, I would have days when I wouldn't know what to blog about.

Let me put it this way. I spent the better part of last evening looking for Ruth Kirtley and her parents on the 1930 census. Ruth was born in 1927 and was a native of Horse Cave, Kentucky according to her 2007 obituary. So why can't I find them on the 1930 census?

The answer is simply this: The trained monkeys could not read Kirtley or even Kertley on the census and instead they read Keatley. Well, you can't do a soundex search for Kirtley and get Keatley. So I resorted to what I used to do before Ancestry and decided to search Horse Cave, Hart County, Kentucky in a line-by-line search of the index, looking for William and something that looks like Kirtley. What I found was William O Keatley, wife Louise and daughters Ann & Ruth. I looked at the census. It actually looked more like William P Kertley than Keatley. Kertley at least would have been found on a soundex search. Sigh.

Now to apply that principle to a death record search.



Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes

Morris Kervoal Where Are You?

There is a great little database on Ancestry that I have been working through called Maine Marriages 1892-1996. I have been attempting to put all these Percival lines together. Sometimes that requires looking at the census to find out to which Percival line they belong. For the most part it went okay except when you would come across this type of relationship on a census - boarder. Sometimes it was necessary to trace back to the grandparents to make sure you had the right relationship and sometimes you would get lucky and the grandkids would be living with the Percival grandparents and that relationship would be denoted as grandson or g-son.

The fellow who gave me the most trouble was Maurice Benjamin Percival. First of all, the only document I find him listed as Maurice is his World War I draft record. All other records he is listed as Morris B Percival (not to be confused with Morris B Percival, son of Daniel G Percival.) I had found the family in 1900, and 1910 but on the 1920 census he was nowhere to be found. Time to search by first name only. Sure enough I found him indexed as Morris Kervoal. Clicking on the image below will show you Ancestry's image.

As if that isn't bad enough, Heritage Quest has him indexed as Resiwal. And Family Search has Ancestry's version of Kervoal. I was able to match every person on that record to my database, so I am sure I have the correct person. I made the correction on Ancestry's database. 
Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes

Working Emigration-Immigration Records and Spelling Doesn't Count Here at All!

Husband's family has largely been a mystery to him and his relatives. For years, I've researched this family, finding the Klijewskis and Siekierskis (for Siekierski see my Surname Saturday for March 6.)

Several years ago, I had located the arrival record for Antonina/Antonia Siekierska and children and for Michael Kruszka and his stepson Jan Fryczynski.  Antonina Siekierska was actually very easy to find, yet her husband Tomasz/Thomas eluded me. So did Michael Kruszka's wife and other step-children and his oldest child, Walenty/Valentine.

Some of the problems I've had searching these surnames are the surnames themselves. Sometimes doing a soundex search results in way too many hits. For instance, a soundex search of the immigration/emigration records on Ancestry results in 283,440 hits.

Finally, I began searching each port of arrival for variations on the name Kruszka, i.e. Kruszka - Kruska - Kruzka - Gruszka - Gruska - Gruzka. Searching Gruzka gives me Michael, but I already had him arriving with his stepson Jan Fricinzki.  Michael and Jan arrived in April 1891.

A check of my records shows that the first Kruszka child born in Buffalo, was Martin, born October 26, 1891. So searching for Jozefa or Josefa might work with a filter of 10 years on her birth date of 1858 and an arrival date of 1891, I finally found Josefa Kruozker in the Baltimore arrival records. Bringing up the image on Ancestry revealed:

     1. Josefa Kruszka (I really think it is an indexing problem) age 30. The age is a little off, but that is not unusual.
     2. Michala, age 10. Again two years off (according to census). She is dittoed as Kruszka. In reality, she is Michalina Fryczynski, a daughter of Josefa and her first husband.
     3. Josef, age 7, again a son from Josefa's first marriage.
     4. Leonora, age 6, daughter from first marriage.
     5. Valentin, age 11 months. He is the oldest child of Michael and Josefa. Again, birth date is a year off.

I had searched under Fryczynski and all variables plus soundex that I could come up with with the only result being Jan/Johann who came over with step-father Michael Gruzka/Kruszka.

On the Siekierski line, searching for Tomasz did not yield any results, so I anglicized the name to Thomas, typed in his last name and came up with the Hamburg list without a problem. The problem was finding his arrival record. Eventually I searched by Thomas, born 1850, (he was born in 1849 - I have the record of his baptism which took place in 1849) arrival in New York aboard the Gellert in 1887. Bingo. You won't find an entry record if the name is spelled wrong and it is actually spelled Sierkrierski on the arrival record. Those first two r's don't agree with the Hamburg record or baptismal, marriage or death records.  Those first two r's also threw off the soundex code.

For Max Klijewski I had to open my mind to arrival ports. I finally found him arriving at the port of Philadelphia from Antwerp, Belgium as Max Kligewski on May 18, 1893.

So far, I've been able to find all of DH's direct line ancestors who emigrated to America from Poland, including his maternal grandparents who came in 1907 and married in Massachusetts. I wish mine were as easy!


Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes

Why You Can't Find That Family ... Or Spelling Doesn't Count.

I sometimes suspect that my family peeked out the windows to watch for the census taker so that they could avoid him/her.

After all, if they were enumerated, I should be able to find them, right? And they always spelled their name Zimmeth. Always. Forever.

W-R-O-N-G!

It doesn't matter how they spelled it, it matters what the census taker wrote. Maybe that census taker didn't have an ear for a German accent.

In researching this Zimmeth family - that's how they spell it now - I've come across the following spellings:

1. Zimet or Zimmet
2. Fimmith
3. Gimmith
4. Zimoneth
5. Limit - ok, I think this was an index error, someone who was not familiar with circa 1850 handwriting. But it is still WRONG.
6. Simet or Simmet

And those are just the spellings in this country. The various spellings for the name in Alsace-Loraine are

7. Ziemet
8. Zimmet
9. Zimmeth

It makes searching for the family interesting. Challenging. Frustrating.

Fortunately, soundex searching will pick up most of the first grouping. Unfortunately you have to have a crystal ball to pick up Fimmith, Gimmeth, Limit and Simet. Actually those were found the old-fashioned way doing a line-by-line microfilm search.

So what do you do when you are on a site such as the Family Search Labs pilot site? You think creatively and go for that exact, close & partial match search. Sure it will bring up 5,600 search results, but chances are the people you are looking for are on the first couple of pages, provided you have burned incense and prayed to the genie gods. I personally hate using that search because it is disheartening to see the result: No exact matches and then see that you have 5,600 hits or 244 pages of hits on close and partial matches.

Today, though, after searching fruitlessly for the Tomasz Siekierski (pronounced Sikorski) family and the Michael Kruszka family, I finally found them under Thomas Sikorski and Michael Krushka, after resorting to the close and partial choice.

So next time you are looking for a family don't forget that soundex search, think creatively and even try it with an accent, so you can figure out what you think the census taker heard. Chances are they are there just waiting for you to find them.