What to Do When Your Ancestor Isn't In the Census - Professional Genealogists Explain
While census records are the gateway to genealogy research, it can be maddening when our ancestors
don’t appear in this federal document.
What can we do?
Howdy, welcome to Family History Fanatics.
If you are new here, my name is Devon Noel Lee, and I love helping people find meaning
and connections through their family trees.
It’s not always easy or quick, but it’s always worth the effort.
And today’s video requires a little bit of effort.
According to Findmypast, "experts estimate that upwards of 90% of the population was
successfully captured in each census."
Therefore, you might not find your ancestor might in the census record.
Or, you might need to search correctly.
I've previously blog posts and videos I shared Online Genealogy Search Strategies You Need
to Know that could help you find your ancestors.
Watch those videos or read the blog posts.
It will be linked in the description box.
Then try the following tips from genealogy experts about finding unfindable ancestors
in census records.
"Use various spellings of the surname and don't be afraid to search the census records
page by page looking at every name listing.
" This tip is from Melissa Barker, The Archive Lady, whose appear on this channel multiple
times.
My friend Thomas MacEntee says " If you can't locate an ancestor, try different search parameters,
use wildcards, etc.
And if you know for sure the area where the ancestor SHOULD BE, determine the enumeration
district and BROWSE the images!"
Miles Meyer, another guest of the Family History Fanatics channel says, "look at names a page
before and after to see if any family members are living nearby.
Many times you can find future spouses just a few doors down."
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Or, you might find someone else you were missing from your previous searches.
Amie Bowser Tennant suggests "Read and study the enumerator's rules and laws pertaining
to why the census was taken.
The reason is you might discover a reason why your ancestor was not enumerated.
" For instance, I have a distant relative living
in Brazil during the 1930 and 1940 census records.
Her family was not part of the military or a government representative.
Instead, her husband worked for a private export trading business.
Therefore, US Citizens living abroad outside of a government or military capacity were
not included in the census records.
I discovered that by following Amie's recommendation.
Before we continue, if I have given you value during this video, please click the like button,
share this video with others and leave a comment.
Researchers at Trace.com suggest: "Often, when you begin to look at a set of
census records for a specific ancestor, it may appear they moved around quite a bit.
However, remember that, especially if they were recorded in different districts of the
same county or a neighboring county, often county and district borders and numbers
changed as new maps were drawn or the population grew or shrunk.
So your ancestor may have stayed in the same house while borders changed around them.
Or you may begin to see a pattern of migration as that individual or family did move around."
In the Family Tree Magazine, Diane Haddad suggests finding the names of likely neighbors.
Search for them, and then search for your ancestors.
Learn more about this strategy in the blog post, A Census Search Trick for Hard-to-Find
Ancestors.
My final tip is that if you can’t find your ancestor in your favorite website: FamilySearch,
Findmypast, MyHeritage, or Ancestry, then go look at the ones you haven’t searched
for them on.
Not all indexes to the census records were created equal.
For example, sometimes an ancestor is impossible to find on FamilySearch but super easy Findmypast.
If you have any other quick tips on how to find your hard-to-find ancestors in census
records, be sure to share them in the comments below.
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Share this video.
And watch this other video about using census records in your genealogy research.