Additional Research Techniques

To go along with my earlier post, Cleaning Up the Family File, I’ve done some additional searches using a wonderful resource – Marriages, Coshocton County, Ohio, 1811-1930 : compiled from marriage records, Probate Court, Coshocton County, Ohio.  This book was put together by Miriam C. Hunter for the Coshocton Public Library in 1967.  She spent most of one year searching the records in Coshocton County in order to compile this book.  I was able to access it through HeritageQuest via my local library.

Since most of my paternal ancestors lived in or near Coshocton during the time period included in the book, I spent the better part of three days carefully combing through the names comparing them to the surnames in my family file.  The time spent searching paid off as I was able to enter dates or a location (Coshocton County) that I didn’t have.

The first part of the book – Volume I – is alphabetized by male surname, then giving the bride’s name and the date of marriage.  However, if the bride had been married before, sometimes she was listed as “Mrs.” and other times not.  Volume II is alphabetized by bride surname and only gives the groom’s first initials and surname.  No date of marriage.  To find that, I had to go back to Volume I and locate the information.  It was pretty time consuming going back and forth – especially when I located several marriages for the bride under previously married names.  I had to keep searching until I found her maiden name.

One example is my grandmother’s (Ella House Amore) half-sister’s, son, Guy Irvine Conger, was married to a woman whose name I’d found awhile back. It was Ethel Ford Maple.  I had located their marriage on Page 65 of Volume I.

She was listed as Mrs. Ethel Ford Mapel.  I also knew that some of the names have been misspelled so I kept searching.  The next time her name jumped out at me was on Page 262.

So her marriage to Frank Murphy was 5 years prior to the marriage to Guy Conger – yet the entry in the book still reads Mrs. Ethel Ford Maple (this time with Maple spelled correctly).  Hmmm.  I had to go find a Maple who had married this woman in order to find out if her true maiden name really was Ford and not a previously marred name or a middle name.  So I went back to Page 220.

That’s when I located Ethel Ford who had married Samuel Maple on July 9, 1914.  If I hadn’t looked through this book carefully, I might not have discovered any of this information. 

That also solved a mystery for me as I have Maple ancestors and thought that perhaps Ethel was a Maple whose parents I hadn’t found.  Turns out she wasn’t born a Maple – she just married one!  And obviously she liked the name for she used it even after her second marriage to Frank Murphy was dissolved by divorce or his death.

Another mystery that I solved happened as I searched for the marriage of my first cousin once removed – Pauline House.  She was my grandmother’s niece (daughter of her brother).  I had many newspaper clippings that listed her as Mrs. Pauline Torjusen but I had never located her husband’s first name.  I couldn’t locate her husband’s family in any of the censuses in order to figure out who he might be.

In Volume II, page 82, I found the HOUSE entries.  There she was – Pauline Hazel House who married T.S. Torporsam. 

Talk about a misspelling!  In every other source (newspaper, family letters, etc.) it is spelled Torjusen.  That is why I didn’t see it in Volume I – because it was listed differently.  So then I had to flip back to Volume I in order to find out what this man’s name was!  On page 372 I found him – Tobias Suran.  The last name was still spelled incorrectly.

Information such as what I found by scanning this book has also helped me in locating Ohio Death Certificate information off of FamilySearch and in the censuses.  Sometimes all of that combined can lead to new names, correct ages, etc.

So I urge you to see if there is a resource such as this available in the areas you are researching – perhaps in the Genealogy area of your local library or nearest large city public library or even from the Genealogy Society.

Now – I’m off to continue my research on many of these names and family members I’ve recently discovered!

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Cleaning Up the Family File

Though my posts have been a little sparse in the last month or so, I’ve still done quite a bit of research.  I’m attempting to clean up my family file – gather death and marriage dates and add source documentation to items I’ve found.

Luckily, I am able to access the Census records on Heritage Quest from home through my library’s database.  Between that and the databases on Family Search I’ve been able to gather many more bits of information and sources.

My steps include:

1. Finding an ancestral family (let’s use my 2nd great-grandfather, Florus Allen House as an example).
2. I check to see what census records I have for him and make sure all are sourced correctly which includes the date census was taken, series, roll, page, dwelling and family numbers, and all information pertaining to the household.
3. Then I check surrounding households to see if any relatives are nearby.
4. If I find that I’m missing a census record, I re-check the databases using wildcards, just the first name, different surname spellings, etc. to see if I can locate the record.
5. I check to make sure that ages match up for children or if there is an in-law, grandchild or other relative also living in the household.
6. From there I move on to the children in the household and begin looking for them in census records after they have moved out of the family home.  I use the same type of searches as I did above.

The information this yields has documented marriages, children of the marriage, birth months and years, approximate length of marriage and the number of marriages a person has had. 

For my ancestors living in Ohio, I’ve been able to look at the Ohio Deaths on Family Search and have been able to gather death dates, whether married, cause of death, location of death and usual residence, birth dates, parents’ names, and occupation.  Sometimes the informant has been a family member which helps document that.  All of that information combined with other sources has been able to provide better documentation.

I’ve also discovered while doing my clean up that information I found through other means or from another person, hasn’t been accurate.  For one child of my 2nd great-grandfather, I had found a record (not sourced) that gives a marriage date – 20 years after this person had allegedly died.  I’ve not found any documents to support the death or the marriage – so on the “notes” section of my family file I list what documents support that this person was a child in the family (census records), and where I found the other information but that it is not proven yet.  In other words a big question mark!

I’ve also found similarly named individuals in the census records that I’ve had to check different documents in order to offer proof it is the individual I’m researching or one who belongs to an entirely different family. 

This is a slow process but one that has yielded promising results.  For me it is akin to working a jigsaw puzzle and checking each piece to see where or if it fits at all.  Half the fun is getting there!

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