{"id":7393,"date":"2017-10-23T11:59:43","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T16:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=7393"},"modified":"2019-04-25T08:21:47","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T13:21:47","slug":"can-you-skip-the-names-when-manually-searching-the-census","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/23\/can-you-skip-the-names-when-manually-searching-the-census\/","title":{"rendered":"Can You Skip the Names When Manually Searching the Census?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-7394 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/behrends-census-1860.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"363\" height=\"231\" srcset=\"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/behrends-census-1860.jpg 864w, https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/behrends-census-1860-300x191.jpg 300w, https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/behrends-census-1860-768x489.jpg 768w, https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/behrends-census-1860-624x397.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 363px) 100vw, 363px\" \/>In the days before indexes, manual searches of census records were necessary. Sometimes that&#8217;s still true today.<\/p>\n<p>One approach when the names had been totally butchered was to not read the names and look at the place of birth as well&#8211;if that was unique enough to make it practical.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s how these entries were located. I read the places of birth for residents of the township where the family was supposed to live and stopped at every family of Germans. Every one. And then I looked at the names more closely to see if they fit the family I needed. That was a more efficient filtering approach than reading every name in every household.<\/p>\n<p>Could the census taker have indicated my Germans were born in Kentucky or elsewhere in the United States. Possibly, but the probability is low.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes you may have to read the census for an entire region, but stop yourself and ask:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>do I really need to read every family in trying to find mine?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the days before indexes, manual searches of census records were necessary. Sometimes that&#8217;s still true today. One approach when the names had been totally butchered was to not read the names and look at the place of birth as well&#8211;if that was unique enough to make it practical. That&#8217;s how these entries were located. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153978,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153978"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}