I’ve been researching my Thorp family for the past 15 years. This is a direct line for me and I want to learn as much as I can about them. My Dad always talked about his paternal grandparents, William Val Gould and May Thorp Gould. He called his grandmother Mema (pronounced Mee Ma).
During this research I was able to locate every census for my 3rd great grandparents, Monson Thorp, Sr. and his wife Lany Cooper Thorp…….except the 1870 census. They married on 12 Apr 1835 in Cato, Cayuga, New York and had 6 children. I located them in the 1840, 1850, 1860 and 1880 federal census records. I also have several newspaper articles about Monson Thorp. I have death certificates and wills for Monson and Lany. From everything I found about them, they never left New York.
But, that 1870 census eluded me.
Yesterday, I was doing research for an upcoming blog post about their daughter Mary J. Thorp. In doing so, I went yet again to those census records trying to find Monson and Lany in 1870. While I was looking at census records for Mary J. Thorp, I decided to try once again to find Monson and Lany in 1870.
I’ve been doing this for over 15 years. I’ve learned a LOT during that time. I consider myself to be an experienced researcher, who is still learning every day. I continue to attend seminars, conferences and classes each year to learn more. We never stop learning.
I’m certain I have searched the census records using variations of Monson’s first and last name, along with variations for Lany. Those names are often misspelled or transcribed incorrectly. So, what was I doing wrong in my searches?
Had I done this exact search before? Searched ONLY the 1870 census records? Used this specific criteria? I may never know, but it worked this time!!!!
I searched All Collections>Census and Voter Lists>US Federal Census Collection>1870 United States Federal Census and entered my criteria.
SPECIAL NOTE: I kept screenshots after I made this find yesterday. I just tried to reproduce the search and COULD NOT get it to come up with the result. WHAT! WHY? I’ll tell you why, because up at the top of the search screen, next to the “search” icon is a box that says “Match all terms exactly.” GUESS WHAT? That box was checked by default. Are you kidding me? Every single time I went to the collections that “match all terms exactly” box is checked. Yesterday, that box must have been unchecked for some reason. This means I need to go back to a LOT of my prior searches for other ancestors.
Back to my find. Here’s the screen shot with the “match all terms exactly” unchecked.
And, look what came up from my search. ONE record and ONLY one. Notice anything wrong with the surname spelling? Regardless of that horrible misspelling, I knew this had to be my Munson.
I selected the record and here is the index and access to the image. The surname is wrong, (indexed as THERSSE), but all the green stars are correct for my ancestor and his wife Lany.
And finally the image. Here they are at last. Living right where I suspected they’d be, in Skaneateles, New York.
My take a way from all of this is that darn check box. Keep an eye out. Maybe I’m the only one who didn’t think to look for that default “match all exactly.” Did you know about it?
If you have similar stories about having searched for a record for years and then having found it, I’d love to hear about it.
OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
FOLLOWING LEADS ON ANCESTRY– One thing leads to another
OCCUPATION FILES ON ANCESTRY–1600-1995–What are they? Have you seen these?
Happy hunting,
Michigan Girl
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