Who to search for

There still seems to be some confusion about who you're supposed to search for and add to the grid. Here is the summary from the training manual.

• Search for the soldier, if the work has not been done or you find new information that could help you find him.
• Search for the soldier's death date and cause.
• Search for the soldier's spouse both after his death and before their marriage.
• Only search for the spouse if she had children with the soldier.
• If the spouse died or was divorced from the soldier without having children, DO NOT search for her.
• Search for the spouse's death date and cause.
• This is only for a spouse who had children with the soldier. If it comes up in the hints or in the soldier's information, please input it if she is already on the grid (because she was enumerated in the soldier's household). We just don't want you spending a lot of time on this.
• Search for the soldier's children in all decades for which they are alive.
• If you don't have a death date for a child, search for the child in all decades of the census.
• This includes adopted children.
• Search for the children's death dates and causes.
• Search for step children when they are children the spouse brought to her marriage with the soldier (so they were part of his household).
• Search for the step children's death dates and causes.

If the soldier's spouse never had children with him, and she was never enumerated in his household on the census, then there is no need to add her to the grid or search for her. Please do not spend time doing this.

ALL of the soldier's children should be added to the grid and searched for. If the soldier had a child who was born and died in the same year, and was never enumerated with the soldier, you must still add this child to the grid. The child's line will be all black dots and purple gravestones.

If a child survived, but you never found her/him in the census with the soldier, you must still add her/him to the grid and search for her/him.

We must follow these rules to save time and money, as well as make our data consistent.