For Genealogy Help: Ask A Pro!by John E. ThompsonGenealogy help is available. If you have a question about your genealogy that you would like answered in this forum, please send an e-mail to: jthompson@censusresearch.com His answers to the most interesting and relevant questions will appear here. Please note: due to the large number of requests received he will unable to personally answer all questions.
John has been employed as a professional genealogical researcher
for the past 15 years. He lives and works in Salt Lake City, Utah the
"Genealogy Capitol of the World." The opinions, comments, suggestions, and
advice that appear here are his and his alone.
QUESTION:
I have been using census indexes to trace my family's movements across
the U.S. during the 1800s. Often, I have found my family by being creative
and looking for unusual spellings and likely typographical errors. How
accurate are census indexes? - J.M. Gillespie
ANSWER: Primarily three companies have produced census indexes over the years. They are: Accelerated Indexing Systems (AIS), Index Publishing (IP), and Precision Indexing (PI). All three are now defunct and have been absorbed by other companies. Currently, no one is indexing census records on any kind of large basis, attempts to index them overseas have met with disastrous results. Index error rates vary not only from company to company but also from one index to another. AIS error rates can vary a lot. It's almost as if they went through several drastic changes in personnel over the years. Some indexes are good, others not so hot. I would estimate their average error rate at around 18 percent, plus or minus 15% depending on the index. AIS began indexing records in the mid-1960s and most of the census indexes available today were originally theirs. They went out-of-business in the early 1990s. Why the variation in error rate? Any number of reasons but here are the most likely:
Index Publishing's error rate is similar to AISs. They produced about 30 indexes before going out-of-business. Of the three, Precision Indexing was the most accurate. PIs error rate was around 3 percent on average (plus or minus 1 or 2 percent). Their indexes (when available) should always be checked first.
QUESTION: I don't know very much about my families history but would really like to learn. However, I don't know know where to start? I've been told we originally came from Virginia but that's hearsay. Is there some golden place to start to look for my ancestors? - Kathy Reeder
ANSWER: Beginning research on your family lines can be an intimidating process, but try to remember one simple rule, "Start with yourself and work backwards." When were you born? Whom did you marry? Where will you die? These are probably the most siginificant dates in each person's life. Everything else revolves around these dates. They are the meat and potatoes of genealogy, try and find this information for each person in your family tree. After you list the information for yourself, find it for your parents and then your grandparents. Remember: Each generation you go backward the number of people double! Two parents, four grandparents, eight great-great grandparents and so on! Once you get beyond the easily obtained vital records in your family lines, about 1915 in most states, you'll likely need to turn to the U.S. Federal census records to continue tracing your family. Census records can take you back another 150 years to the late 1700s. Family research can be kept fun and interesting if you'll take the time to note any unusual stories or dramas you find along the way, and share them with other family members. After all, genealogy is more than just names, dates and pictures. It's the "story" of your family. Why did your great grandparents come to America? What was the trip like? How long did it take? Did they travel first class or steerage? What was the name of the boat they arrived on? Who was the Captain? The questions go on and on. The answers are what you seek. But it's the stories behind the answers that you'll eventually find the most interesting.
QUESTION:
I have been searching for where and when my great-great grandparents,
Luigi and Elena Bartolo first entered the U.S. I am fairly certain
they came through the port of New York sometime around 1870 but don't
know how to go about accessing the the passenger ship lists. When and
where are passenger lists available? Are there any indexes to them?
Any help you can give me would be appreciated. - Helen B. Fedrizzi
ANSWER: Official U.S. passenger lists are available for the years 1820 to 1945 for most ports with customs houses. These would be the major ports at places like New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Galveston, etc. The microfilmed lists are available on a rental or purchase basis from the National Archives. Copies are also available through the Family History Library and its Family History Centers located throughout the U.S. The Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana also has a large collection of the lists. For a detailed description of what's available from the National Archives see: Immigration and Passenger arrivals: A Select Catalog of National Archives Microfilms. You are probably right in your assumption that they came through the port city of New York. However, no comprehensive index is available for the passenger ship arrivals for New York for the time period 1847 to 1897. There are partial indexes for ethnic Germans, Dutch and Irish and but even these only cover a portion of the 50 year period. See Germans to America, Dutch to America and the Famine Immigrants by Genealogical Publishing.
Your only option at this point would be to do a careful line by line search
of the passenger arrival records for 1870, a tedious time consuming search.
Before undertaking this option, I would recommend you check with as many
older relatives as you can, to verify that your grandparents did in fact
arrive during 1870. Should you be off by a year or two, you will end up
doubling or tripling the amount of time it will take for you to find them.
Last updated July 15, 1998. |