CENSUS SUNDAY~The 1921 Scottish census for the George, Isabell & Euphemia Fitzcharles

 

As promised here is the follow up post regarding the 1921 Scottish census records I talked about in How to Locate New Information on My Scottish Ancestors ~ Using the 1921 census

Let’s begin with 11 yr old Euphemia Anderson FITZCHARLES.

Here is the 1921 Scottish census record for this family

(Please click on any image to enlarge it)

1921 Scottish census for Isabella, Euphemia & George Fitzcharles

In this record we see her mother Isabella, Euphemia and her brother George living in the parish of Arboath & St. Vigeans, in the burgh of Arbroath in the Quoad Sacra Parish of Invenbrothock in the First ward.  They are enumerated on the schedule in the schedule as #69.  The road or street is Lindsay Street and they are at No. 35.  There are 2 rooms in the house with 3 persons.

How interesting that they live on LINDSAY Street.  My paternal grandmother’s surname is Lindsay and this family is part of that line.

Isabella is head of household, age 35 and widowed.  She born in ____ (I cannot make out the location).  Euphemia is 11 yrs. 5 months old and born in Sterling.  Her brother George is 8 yrs. 6 months old and born in Forfar. Isabella’s occupation is abbreviated as H.D.  I wonder if that means Keeping house or household domestic?  There are 2 minor children in this house.

I don’t see anyone else with the same surname or any familiar family names on this census page. 

When we view pages on a website like Ancestry or Family Search, we can scroll to the next or previous page looking for family members who may live close by.  However, since each page view on Scotland’s People website costs me 6 credits, I don’t do that.

This census provides plenty of information to assist me in furthering my research on this family.

·       I have specific birthplaces and not just ages in years, but also months.

·       Isabella is listed as widowed.  If I didn’t already know this, I could then search for her husband’s death record.  However, I do know that her husband and father of her two children, was killed in action in World War I on 27 Mar 1918 in France.  Here is a blog post about him MILITARY MONDAY–Killed in Action–A Tribute to George Briggs Fitzcharles 1886-1918

     ·     In further research for this family it will be helpful to have         the details of their ages and birthplaces.

QUESTIONS:  Isabella is widowed at age 32 with two young children to raise.  How was she supporting herself?  Based on her death record from 1955, she never remarried.  

Of course I had to go looking for more records.  In doing so I may have answered the question about how Isabella was supporting herself and her children.

In Euphemia’s hints on Ancestry there is a link to UK, World War I Pension Ledgers and Index Cards, 1914-1923.  The image can be viewed on Fold3, which I do not currently have a subscription to.

However, I do have a Carlsbad Library card which may give me access to this website.

Sure enough I was able to sign into the library and use my membership number and view the website for Fold3, right here from home.  I found this image of a pension card for Isabella Fitzcharles for her deceased husband’s service in 1^st Royal Scots.  Certainly not as much information as I’d like to have, but this still gives me information about what income Isabella had.  How much was it?  Good question.

Well, I was going to write about the other 1921 Scottish census record I uncovered.  However, this post is already long enough, so I’ll cover that one in a future post.

Do you have Scottish ancestry?  Have you used Scotland’s People to find records?  If so, I’d love to hear your stories. 

If you are related to or connected to anyone in this blog post, please get in touch.  Let’s exchange information.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2022   Diane Gould Hall
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

 

CENSUS SUNDAY ~ The 1950 census featuring Me and my husband

It’s time I began writing about the 1950 census, which was made public this past April 1^st.

This particular census was a big one for some of us baby boomers.  It would be the first census we are enumerated.  

Ron and I we were fortunate to be born during the first 3 months of 1950 because the census enumerated people in the household on April 1, 1950. 

I was not disappointed and found both of us with our parents, on the very first day the census came out.  While it wasn’t yet indexed, we had all learned ways to find our families by using enumeration indexes and other tricks.  It’s all indexed now and can be searched by name.

To access the 1950 census and find your family, you can go to Ancestry, MyHeritage or Family Search

Here is the 1950 census with me as a baby and my parents.

Click on any image to enlarge it

They are living in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan.  Both myself and my parents were born in Detroit, as were many other family members.  No surprise that my blog is called Michigan Family Trails.  My Dad is working as a truck driver for Cartage Company.  They are living at 16814 Winston.  In fact I have a picture of them standing in front of that very house prior to my birth.

Here's a scrapbook page I created using that photo.

Here is the 1950 census with my husband Ron and his parents, Gordon & Dorothy.  They are living in San Diego, California at 4339 35^th St.  Gordon is working as a Field Representative at the Pacific Finance Company.  The census correctly states that Gordon was born in California, Dorothy in New York and Ron right there in San Diego.

Of course I have many more family members who appeared in this census and will write about them from time to time.  Especially our grandparents, aunts and uncles.

There were no surprises in this census record in regards to our families.  

• Have you found yourself in this census?  
• How about family members?  
• Were there any surprises for you?

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2022   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

AT LAST ~ THE RELEASE OF THE 1950 U.S. FEDERAL CENSUS

 

It happened!!  The release of the 1950 census

April 1, 2022

To read about my preparations for this big event click here Are you ready for the 1950 census? 

In addition to creating my list with Legacy, I also used Steve Morse’s website to try to narrow down enumeration districts. Steve Morse & Joel Weintraub Unified 1950 Census ED Finder 

A name index using Artificial Intelligence was released on the National Archives website.  But, how accurate will it be? 

That being said, I wanted to do everything I could to be ready. 

The 1950 census enumerates people who were living at a certain address as of April 1, 1950. This is quite significant to both myself and my husband, Ron.  Why? Because we were both born in March.  If the enumeration was done correctly this will be the first time we appear on a census record. 

I couldn’t wait to find us and our parents! 

All the social media sites were a buzz with anticipation of this release.  Amy Johnson Crow began a countdown at 11:50 pm EST, which would be 8:50 pm here on the west coast. 

I tuned in and waited with everyone else. 

Sure enough at EXACTLY midnight eastern time, the census went live on the National Archives (NARA) website.  

OH BOY!!!!! 

The very first thing I did was put in the location where I would be found, as well as the enumeration district.  I crossed my fingers and hoped. 

I entered Michigan, Detroit, Wayne and enumeration district 85-2559.

PLEASE CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT

I could see that I would have 29 pages to scroll through.  Not too bad and easily doable. 

When I got to page 16………………..WOW!  There they were my parents, Harry & Patricia and their baby daughter, Dianne (written with two n’s instead of one, but that’s ok).

Census image showing me with my parents

I repeated the process with my husband’s place of birth, San Diego, California.  I already had the ED’s saved.  I entered the information and began scrolling through the census images.  This time there were 27 pages.  

There they were with their infant son, Ronald, on page 23 of the image set.

Census image showing Ron with his parents

Here are the ways you can find your family. 

·       Use the Ancestry 1950 census district finder (which worked very well for me) Enter the location/address etc. and it should give you an ED

·       Use Steve Morse’s page as another way to locate the ED

·       Go to the NARA (National Archives website) 1950 Census and read their Tips for Searching the Census and proceed.

·       Use the census images on MyHeritage to search for the records.

·       And last that I know of – use the Family Search website.  I used this one for the first time this morning.  I’m not finding it as easy to use right now.  I need to spend some more time learning how their system works for this census.

I hope everyone is having a good time finding their families in this latest census release.

I have so far located both sets of grandparents, my uncle and my Dad’s ex wife and my two half sisters.  I have a lot more people to try and locate.  Can I find them without use of a name index?  I’m not sure.  I’ve tried entering the names on the NARA site, but so far, have not been successful in locating the exact families.

I’d love to hear your success stories. 

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2022   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

SATURDAY NIGHT GENEALOGY FUN ~ Are you ready for the 1950 census?

 

Randy Seaver, blogger extraordinaire, does a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post each week.  It’s always fun to play along. Here is this week’s post.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music here) is to:

 

1)   The 1950 United States Census will be available to search on 1 April 2022 - less than three weeks away. How have you prepared yourself to search it? Have you found 1950 addresses of your family members and persons of interest? Have you identified the State, County, Town and Enumeration District? Have you made a table of your findings so you can systematically find everyone on your list? What will you do with the information you gather?

2) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post. Be sure to leave a link with your answers in a comment.

I am excited about the release of the 1950 census for a few reasons.  First of all, it’s the first release of a census that  should have both myself and my husband included.  Albeit, only by a few days.

Secondly, who doesn’t want another census in which to find our ancestors?

And finally, what knew information can I learn from the census?

Here’s how I’ve prepared.

I use Legacy Family Tree software.  They have a feature called “Census List.”  This is located in the Search tab.

My created list give me 1854 individuals who may appear on the 1950 census.

WOW!  That’s great. I guess I won’t lack for something to do in the coming weeks.

My primary focus will be myself and my husband, our parents, grandparents and great grandparents.  And, of course siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles.

We will have to depend on the index created by Family Search volunteers. It may take several months for the indexing to be complete.

In the meantime, as with the 1940 census release, 10 years ago, we have other options.

You can use the Steve Morse and Joel Weintraub Enumeration District (ED) Finder.  Here’s a link to their website Enumeration District Maps in One Step

When I entered my primary search focus, which is Detroit, Wayne, Michigan I got the following list of Enumeration Districts. While all those links appear to have the same ED number, when you click on each one, they go to a different map.

Since Detroit is a big city it might be a bit of a search to find the correct ED. However, if you practice by using the 1940 census it may make it easier for you.

However you prepare for this big event, I wish you lots of luck in your searches. 

I’d love to hear what your going to do, either in a comment or on your own blog.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

TAX & ESTATE RECORDS ~ What I learned at a seminar featuring Michael Lacopo

San Diego Genealogical Society

Guest Speaker: Michael Lacopo, D.V.M.

Session 1: More than the Census-Our Families did exist within those ten-year intervals

Session 2: Using Tax Records for Genealogical Problem Solving

Session 3:  Estate Files: Are you getting the most out of them?

Session 4: The German Immigrant experience in the 18^th Century

It’s always fun to attend classes, seminars and conferences.  In a dozen plus years, I’ve never attended one and walked away without more knowledge than I started with.  In addition to learning how to do research by actually doing it, and watching various webinars, I cannot say enough about attending seminars and conferences.

I wrote a blog post about this subject in 2014 and what I said still holds true today.

You can read it here SEMINARS, WEBINARS, SOCIETIES–WILL THEY HELP YOUR RESEARCH?

The San Diego Genealogical Society will be celebrating it’s 72nd year next month.  It’s still very active and up to date. Please visit our web page here San Diego Genealogical Society.

Our speaker yesterday was Michael Lacopo.  He has an impressive resume and once you attend one of his classes, you’ll want to hear him speak again. When I attended a class back in 2016 at Jamboree, I couldn’t wait for another opportunity to hear him lecture.  He’s knowledgeable, easy to understand and has a great sense of humor.

Here are some of the highlights from the seminar:

Session 1 – make sure you are paying attention to where your ancestors went during those 10 year intervals between U.S. censuses.  Michael pointed out, using real examples, the surprising movements that could occur during those intervals.  We all know that, contrary to what me might have been told, our ancestors didn’t always stay put.  There are many resources you can use to obtain information between censuses: tax records, land records, probate records, church records, voter and poll records and newspapers are just a few. 

Session 2 – Tax Records – I learned a lot during this session.  I’ve used tax records before, but not often.  And, I never understood the real value of them until Michael explained it.  I can’t possibly cover, nor do I want to duplicate, what Michael told us.  It is after all his presentation.  Here’s what I realized though – from tax records you can determine what kind of property your ancestor owned and where.  This could lead to you finding probate and land records.  Who was taxed in the same location as your ancestor?  Are they related?  Did your ancestor’s property increase or decrease between taxations?  Take a look, you won’t regret it.  I’m doing just that today and I’ve already located quite a lot of information.

Session 3 – Estate Files – I expect that most of you have looked at estate files, probate records, wills etc.  BUT, are you like me and just look for the actual will among those papers?  I always kind of skipped over the administration papers, bond papers and something called a Vendue List (an auction list of the value of items). Who bought items at the auction?  Michael shared that if a buyer came from a county over or some other long distance, they were probably related.  Why was there still activity going on for a probate 15 years after someone died?  It could have been the executors weren’t doing their jobs.  If there was more than one auction of items, check those names.  Did the same name show up again and again?  Probably a relative.  I now realize I may have missed some extremely important clues to family connections.  I have vowed, as of today, to change my ways.  Michael recommended and so do I, that you use Cyndi’s List as a place to find more links to estate files.  I have a lot of work to do now that I know better what to be looking for.

Session 4 – German Immigrant Experience – This was a case study for one of Michael’s ancestors who came to America from Germany.  But, the things we learned can apply to any immigrant experience.  Learning more about what our ancestors went through, just to get here, makes us appreciate all the more, their sacrifices.

I’ve been busy today revisiting tax & estate records for my own ancestors and my approach is completely different.  Thank you Michael.

YOU MAY FIND THESE POSTS HELPFUL

STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS ON LOCATING A PROBATE RECORD ON FAMILY SEARCH

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2018   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION