Notes from census meeting - Day 3, part 2

Here are Irene's notes from the last day of our census meeting. Not very many of you left comments about how good the meeting was or how much you appreciated the work Janice and Irene put into their presentations. Please leave comments for them.

DEATH INDEXES: State Archives, Departments of Health, etc.

                        See what’s available on deathindexes.com

                        Look at time frames covered in the indexes

                        Look at the locations covered in the indexes

                        Judge how easy the index is to use

·         How fast can you find the search features?

·         How much time do you have left to search on your soldier’s family?

·         Use CTRL F to search and find instead of scanning and scrolling through a lot of information

                        Judge how valuable the information will be compared to what you have already from the mil info and what you’ve found on Ancestry and Family Search.

·         Will it give you any new death information?

·         Will it improve the quality code?

                        On indexes that only give a name, death date and place with no other identifying information…

·         Use cautiously

·         Use when you have narrowed down the likely death location (county)

·         Use when you have narrowed the death down to a relatively short time span (between censuses)

·         Best for uncommon names

·         Double check for others of the same name (of all ages) in the census year preceding the death

                        Check the URLs before saving to the tree and VCC death screen

·         When the URL doesn’t link to the individual records, copy and paste the URL from the search page and enter the search parameters in the ‘Other Information’ field on the tree and in the ‘Remarks’ field on the VCC death screen

Maryland State Archives:

                        State-wide coverage from 1898 – 1944

                        Choose appropriate time frame and first letter of surname

                        Index cards are arranged alphabetically by last name then by first name.

                        Since they take a little longer to search, make sure it will be worth your time by following the guidelines for using indexes that only give name, dath date and death place.

                        Do not use them when…

·         When they moved around a lot

·         When the name was very common

·         When there was more than 1 person with the same name in the county, especially in the census year previous to the death.

·         When you already have a death date and place from the mil info or another source like Find A Grave.

Information from public family trees

Here is a note from Sandy about getting death information from public family trees.

Don't intermix public family tree info with better documented sources for your obits.  Public tree info is QC 4, so you'd have to make your QC a 4 if you use any information that is found only on the public tree. For example, If you have only year of death on Find A  Grave, and you find month and day of death in a public tree, you should enter only the year in the obit screen.  You can put day and month in  the remarks, but do not enter it as data.

Notes from census meeting - Day 3

Here are Janice's notes from "death day" at our census meeting. There might be more notes later. We'd like to thank Janice and Irene for all the work they put into preparing their presentations. They did an excellent job, and I think we all benefited from their knowledge. Additionally, Annie, Coralee, AnnaLisa, Chris, and Giles all presented to everyone or a small group and gave us some great information. Please use the comments to thank Irene and Janice for their great work.

DEATH RECORDS

Use deathrecotds.com covers all 50 states and District of Columbus

●    Statewide indexes are listed first

          Ancestry

          FamilySearch

          State Archives and other sources

●    Large cities generally have their own listing

●    Counties are listed following statewide indexes

Types of death records

●    Mortality Schedules

          List of people who died between June 1 of the year preceding the census to April 31th of the census year.

 Mortality schedules were taken along with population schedules during the 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 censuses, and in six states (Colorado, Florida, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, and South Dakota) in 1885.

Information included the deceased name, age, sex, race, marital status, birthplace, month of death, occupation, and cause of death. Though part of the federal censuses, mortality schedules are separate from the population schedules.

NATIONAL HOME FOR DISABLED VOLUNTEER SOLDIERS

Information we can get from the NHDVS

1.    Name of the hospital, admission and discharge dates

2.    Date of enlistment

3.    Company

4.    Age at time of enlistment

5.    Place of birth

6.    Occupation

7.    Marital Status

8.    Name and address of nearest relative

9.    Medical condition at time of admission

10.  Date and cause of death (if died in Mil home)

The records for 12 of the branches are covered in databases in ancestry and family search

1.    Bath Branch, Bath, New York

2.    Battle Mountain Sanitarium, Hot Springs, South Dakota

3.    Central Branch, Dayton, Ohio

4.    Danville Branch, Danville, Illinois

5.    Eastern Branch, Togus, Maine

6.    Marion Branch, Marion, Indiana

7.    Mountain Branch, Johnson City, Tennessee

8.    Northwestern Branch, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

9.    Pacific Branch, Los Angeles, California

10.  Roseburg Branch, Roseburg, Oregon

11.  Southern Branch, Hampton, Virginia

12.  Western Branch, Leavenworth, Kansas

Don’t forget to use FamilySearch as a source for death records

SOCIAL SECURITY DEATH INDEX (SSDI)

Information we can get from the SSDI

1.    Name

2.    Date of birth

3.    Date of death

4.    Place and year social security number was issued

5.    Last residence or last benefit

            Last Residence is the last known address the SSA knew about when paying benefits

            Last benefit was the benefit paid to qualifying survivor, such as a spouse or a child

SOCIAL SECURITY APPLICATIONS AND CLAIMS INDEX

Information we can get from the SS Apps and Claims Index

1.    Name

2.    Race

3.    Birth date

4.    Birth place

5.    Parents

6.    When application was made and the name that was used

GOOGLE

When all else fails you might try Google

Notes from census meeting - Day 2

Here are the notes from today's presentations by Irene & Janice.

UNCERTAIN MATCHES: Sometimes the challenge is not finding children, but determining if the match you found is good enough or if one possible match is better than another.

Look for clues that might strengthen a match or narrow down the number of possible matches

           

·         Birth month

·         Middle names and initials

·         Residence

·         Street names and addresses

·         Birthplace of parents

·         Race

·         Naming patterns -

·         Are children in census households named after the vet or anyone in his family?

·         Surnames -

·         Does anyone in their census household match the vet’s surname, his wife’s maiden surname or any other surnames seen in other family households?

·         Unique occupations -

·         Are they the same or similar to the vet’s or other family members?

·         Relatives on the same census page

·         Migration patterns -

·         Do they have the same migration pattern as other family members? ex: They lived in Giles, TN and moved to Rostraver, PA

Search for other records that might prove or disprove your possible matches.

WWI & WWII Draft Registration Cards -

·         They usually include a birthdate, birthplace (often the town or county), residence, occupation, nearest relative or other contact person with addresses

·         Can search with an exact birthdate

·         They can help sort out others with the same name.

·         They can help identify a son who moved to a different and unexpected location.

·         They can also be used to locate the vet’s daughter if you know her husband’s name.

PROJECT 2

Searching tips:

●     Use race/ nationality field with caution

            Indexed as Black, Negro, Colored, Mulatto and even Chinese

●     Extend birthdate range

●     Be open to surname name changes

●     As with all Southerners, First and middle names as well as nicknames were often used interchangeably.

Freedman Banking Records

●     Established in 1868

●     Failed in 1874

Cohabitation Records

            Alabama

            Georgia

            Kentucky

            Mississippi

            North Carolina

            Tennessee

            Virginia

            Just now being digitized so states better than others, currently Virginia records are the most complete.

Notes from census meeting - Day 1

Here are the notes Irene and Janice put together for their presentations.

NOTE KEEPING: Foundation for successful searching

·         Take detailed notes

·         A few extra minutes spent on keeping good notes can save more time in the overall search for a soldier’s family and can increase find rates as well.

·         Write information from the mil info in one color and write in information from other sources in a different color.

·         See at a glance which info is from the mil info.

                Fill in extra information as you come across it in the records

·         Names: Additional names, middle names and initials or alternative name spellings

·         Birth info: Additional or alternative birth dates and places

·         Residences: Places lived and addresses or street names

·         Unique occupations

·         # of children living from the 1900 and 1910 censuses

·         Death dates and places

                Keep track of potential relatives for later use

·         Grandchildren, nieces and nephews, spouses, siblings and parents of the vet or his wife, witnesses, informants, next of kin, etc…

                Highlight important information that you might use later.

ORGANIZATION TIPS:  For smoother and faster searching

·         Bookmark all sites you use regularly

·         Search order

·         In general, search for the spouse first then work from the easiest children to the hardest children.

·         If you’re finding nothing on a child or spouse, don’t spend too much time on them. Put them on the backburner and move on to someone else. You may come across them or across clues that may lead back to them while searching for other family members. If you are able to find most family members quickly, then you can allow extra time for going back to search that difficult family member. However, if the search has been difficult and slow for many family members, you will know that you shouldn’t spend much more time when you go back to finish searching for that person.

                Don’t get side-tracked

·         If you come across good information on a different person than the one you are searching, write it down in your notes so you can refer back to it later. If it’s a source and a certain match, add it to the tree, but go right back to the person you were originally searching.

                Use state county maps when needed

·         Use them to judge if a find is close to where the veteran’s family was living.

·         Use them to see which counties border each other for efficient adjacent county searches.

·         Create timelines when needed

·         Form a mental narrative as you go

·         Use your narrative to direct your search.

·         Does the record you’ve found make sense and fit into the narrative, timelines and patterns for the family?

·         If not, you may need to adjust your narrative or reject the record.

SEARCHING TIPS

Be observant and open minded

●     Truncations with Ancestry

○     First and last character  cannot both be a wildcard

○     There must be at least three non wildcard characters

●     Truncations with FamilySearch

○     First and last character can both be wildcard

○     Can have as little as one letter and a wildcard

●     Types of Searches

○     First name search - works best with unique first names or when last name is very common

○     Last name search - can search for two surnames at a time or two truncations at a time, e.g. Sti*, Ste*

○     Parents names only search

■     Ancestry use “birth, marriage, death” option under search

■     FamilySearch use “search with a relationship” option

○     Street name search

■     Available on the 1910, 1920 and 1940 censuses, use keyword search in the 1930

■     Try variations, e,g, North State, No State, State

○     Exact birthdate search

■     Use with anything that has an exact date, e.g. SSDI, WWI, WWII draft registrations, death certificates, etc.

Things to be aware of:

●     Zero matches - Ancestry has a glitch concerning independent cities, etc. FS doesn’t have those issues

●     Conflicting results - resolve issues by evaluating previous work and comparing evidence to new research

For our upcoming census inputting conference

This is just a reminder to be thinking of a soldier you've been working on that is particularly difficult. You won't bring these soldiers up during the group training, but we are hoping to have time for Janice and Irene to work with individuals and small groups. During this time it would be great for them to be able to assist with your real work rather than make up examples or work with you on soldiers who are easy to find.

Birth dates and death dates are not the same

We are a study on aging and longevity, so it is really important to only type death dates in the death date field and not type birth dates. During some data integrity checks this was noticed to be such a problem as to mildly annoy Chris. It's really, really difficult to mildly annoy Chris, so you know this was a problem.

Please only type death dates in the death date field on the death screen. After you've typed it, look at the date to make sure what you typed makes sense.

The errors Chris found have fallen into two main categories:

1. Typos - do not to type 1809 when the document says 1909
2. Typing actual birth dates in the death date field - we suspect this happens because the inputter is trying to be quick and types the wrong date from Find a Grave

These problems will both be solved if you take a second and make sure you typed the correct date in the field.