Category Archives: Search tools

I Can’t Find My Family in the 1950 US Census – Now What?

In my line of work, I hear complaints/issues/calls for help whenever a genealogy website is updated or altered in any respect. That goes for all the sites, especially “big” sites such as Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org. There are also issues that pop up when certain collections are released. What is it, how do I search it, can I download it, etc…

The latest series of issues I’ve dealt with has to do with the 1950 US Population Schedule. In this blog, I’d like to discuss one solution to the “missing person” issue.



After one of the recent classes I held, a gentleman raised a problem during the Q&A session. He was about 9 years old in 1950 and was eager to see his own name as well as his parents and siblings’ names. They were nowhere to be found. His entire family was missing. Try as he might, he received no results when using his name or any of the names of those in his family. And it was in a small town in central Massachusetts. There were others in his family, aunts, uncles, and cousins who were easily found. But his entire family had vanished.

First, he assumed that they were never enumerated. Then he thought that they might have lived elsewhere during that point in time. Unlikely in either case, but he had no other theory as to where they were.

I didn’t have too much time to dedicate to him as there were many other questions from the class. I gave it my best shot by changing the search parameters to “Exact and Similar” for the names and “+/- 5 years” for the dates. I tried each name of those who should have been in the family at that time. No luck. And a “failure” in front of the entire class!

Many other hands were raised so I told him that I would use a few more strategies when I got home. Whatever the results, I told him, I’d get in touch as soon as possible.

After dinner that night, I went to the 1940 census, hoping to find someone who lived on the same street or at least close to it. I picked up a few other families who may have been neighbors and hoped they were still around in 1950.

Back to the 1950 census, I searched for his potential neighbors and got an immediate hit. It didn’t take much time at all to locate a neighbor who lived next door to the 1950 family we were trying to locate. The problem? Not only was the handwriting of the enumerator difficult to read, the family name I was looking for was not much more than dark, heavy lines of squiggle on the census record. As you can imagine, the indexer had to take their best shot at what was written in 1950.

When I found the family, their name was indexed with no vowels and what looked like letters weren’t even close to the name. But there they were! Father, mother and three kids including my diligent student, now 81 years old and very happy!

Just a quick afterthought: If this didn’t work, I would’ve gone to page 71….

Say “Hello” to My Little Friend! Flip-Pal

Flip-Pal

Flip-Pal

Here’s  a device that I should have bought years ago. I’ve heard about it from colleagues. I’ve seen it in the exhibit halls at genealogy conferences. I’ve read about it in the ubiquitous advertising at Facebook and other social media. How could it be that helpful.

Here’s how: Flip-Pal. It’s compact, fits in your backpack or computer bag, it’s incredibly easy to use, scans large documents a section at a time and stitches the sections together and will actually send the scans wirelessly to your smartphone, tablet or laptop! What else could a research genealogist want?

I’m being completely serious when I say that it’s worth every penny and more, but don’t tell the folks at Flip-Pal….

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Genealogy Research Tools

In response to an assignment arising from HOA “GenTools Study Group” I have to say that I have very little in the way of hardware to support my research efforts.

LENOVO T540p

LENOVO T540p

For online research, it’s my (not so) trusty Lenovo T540p laptop. I thought I had made a wise decision but it has been anything but! It’s nothing particularly exotic nor does it have any extraordinary features. As a matter of fact, just the process to get it working properly is in itself a long story.

I have a backup laptop. It’s an overworked DELL STUDIO XPS that overheats and shuts down. However, I can nurse it along with a cooling pad with a built in fan.  Standard equipment with this old machine!

HP Officejet Pro 8600

HP Officejet Pro 8600

Beyond that, there’s my trusty workhorse printer/scanner/fax machine, the HP Officejet Pro 8600. It’s probably the best printer/scanner/fax machine I’ve ever owned and since it was very reasonably priced, I considered it a bargain. I would recommend HP products without reservation. It has never failed to do what it was built to do. In the next several days or perhaps even several weeks, I’ll be putting this machine to task. I’m planning on scanning as many of the hundreds of documents, photos and whatever and shredding the originals in my attempt to make room here in my office for me to at least sit down at my own desk! (I might even get around to painting the walls ala Hillary Gadsby’s office!

Communication: Motorola Droid Turbo from Verizon Wireless. There are better phones, but in

Motorola Droid Turbo

Motorola Droid Turbo

my opinion, not many. I have a ridiculous number of apps installed including Find-A-Grave, Billion Graves, Ancestry.com, FamilySearch and a few other genealogy related apps. The camera is excellent and I have plenty of storage. It syncs with my laptop so whatever photos I take whether grave stones or documents, it’s no problem at all to name and store them, upload them to the newly condemned Family Tree Maker then sync’d with Ancestry.com,

My Logitech headset and webcam are essential for participation in Hangouts and broadcasting/watching various webinars. Both of these items came highly recommended by DearMYRTLE and Cousin Russ and have proven reliable.

Logitech HD Pro c920 Webcam

Logitech HD Pro c920 Webcam

Logitech USB Headset

Logitech USB Headset

Without a doubt, I’d really like to invest in a good portable scanning tool, a tripod that will hold my Droid horizontally and a few other items. But as you may not have realized, I have precious little room in my office for anything else…until I get “organized!”