Can You Identify These People Before It’s Too Late??? Part III

If the Fire Dies, Use Your Old Census Records

Millions of people ruin their eyes every day at old microfilm machines trying to construct their family trees. Millions of people develop grumpy personalities scouring over records on ancestry.com and similar sites. If your name is Sydlowkawitsz, it’s likely that it’s misspelled almost everywhere in old records. But what if your name is Smith? Well, that could be Smithe, Smyth, Smythe, Smit, Sith, Smett, or anything else that a low-paid census enumerator or immigration agent happened to hear or record that day.

Census records can also enable time travel. My Indian Agent uncle was born in 1833, but in 1860 he was 32 and in 1870 he was 34. Go figure. Public records are notoriously bad, unless you happen to have Abraham Lincoln or some similar well-documented person in your ancestral line. So what do you do? You search and search and search archives, old newspapers, Google, books (google.books.com!), attics, basements – and living relatives!

Since we didn’t have electronic tools “back then” (I mean up to about 1960!!!) and many old records have been lost (almost the entire 1890 US census was lost to fire or damage), the best way to view your personal ancestral record might be to look forward! While electronic records may provide a more accurate record going forward (except for the big electromagnetic pulse that could destroy digital records of everything if an “enemy” gets “the bomb”), your best bet for family record immortality is to DIY – do it yourself!

There are many people who look forward to such a project in ‘retirement’ – who never quite get to it – if you know what I mean. Calling all young people – help your elders today – before they “forget.”

Now, back to Scott McClellan and politics. Do you know why we see so many statues in Rome of gladiators slaying lions? Because there were no lions who were sculptors! Imagine the amount of statues we’d see of lions eating gladiators if the lions had only sculpted. Be a sculptor.

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