Part of my next assignment is to create a research plan.  We are to pick a problem from our own genealogy and develop a research plan around that problem.  I’ve blogged (see related posts) about my second great-grandfather in the past, and two of those recent posts have been a research plan of sorts.  I debated whether I wanted to do the assignment on this problem, or chose another problem to tackle.

I decided to review my previous two plans and create a more “formal” research plan tackling the specific goal of finding records of Emil and  Hulda’s deaths.  In reviewing the previous plans, one item was to locate the birth certificates of their son, Emil, and daughter, Ida.  I check the FamilySearch Pilot Search nearly every day to see if the Cook County, Illinois birth registers or certificates databases have been updated.  Although neither had been in a while, I decided to search for the certificates AGAIN!  But this time, I got a little creative and search only for children with parents Emil and Hulda.  I didn’t use a last name, as I’ve tried variants of Miller/Muller/Mueller before.  Wouldn’t you know, I finally found son Emil’s birth certificate.  It had been there all along.  It never showed up in search results because it was indexed as Muillar and Hulda’s maiden name was not indexed.  Unfortunately, I still have not found Ida’s, but am hoping the database will be updated soon.

This new information, namely the residence, puts a kink in my suspicions about the 1900 census and the Emil located at 29 Clarinda from 1888 to 1902 in the Chicago city directories (see Finding Emil).  Reason being, the address listed on Emil’s birth certificate is 55 Emma (which coincidentally is across the street from my third great-grandparents James and Bridget Ward, in my father’s line; the Millers are in my mother’s line).  This places that family at a residence other than 29 Clarinda, during the span listed in the directories, thus meaning it’s quite possible they are two different people.

With this new information, I went back to my maps to see if I had plotted an Emil at that address from the directory search.  I hadn’t, and even though it’s in the proximity of the church (which I would have plotted) I went back to the directories looking for a match to this address, just in case I missed it.  Unfortunately, there was not listing at this address for 1888, 1889, 1890.

Hopefully Ida’s birth certificate will turn up and give me another data point.  In the meantime, my new research plan includes finding church records and looking for Hulda’s death certificate in McHenry County.

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