{"id":1050,"date":"2009-02-17T09:53:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-17T15:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/bingo-and-a-few-lessons-learned\/"},"modified":"2013-07-12T16:47:07","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T21:47:07","slug":"bingo-and-a-few-lessons-learned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/bingo-and-a-few-lessons-learned\/","title":{"rendered":"Bingo! (and a few lessons learned)"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Bingo<\/strong><\/h6>\n

For a while now, I have been trying to find my grandfather in the 1930 census.\u00a0 It’s a weird situation, that goes a little something like this:<\/p>\n

My grandfather, John F “Jack” CAHILL was born in 1922.\u00a0 He had an older brother Raymond, born in 1918, and an older sister, Marcella, born around 1920.\u00a0 Raymond was enumerated in the 1920 census with his parents, John F CAHILL and Catherine M SCHWARTZ Cahill.\u00a0 Since Marcella was not listed, I assume that she was born after January 1920 (which is when the census was done).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A chain of event occurred between 1920 and 1930 for this family.\u00a0 On 26 January 1925, my great-grandmother Catherine allegedly took her own life.\u00a0 I say allegedly because some family members wonder whether it was homicide instead of suicide.\u00a0 Apparently, my great-grandfather, John, was a shady character and it was said that he left Catherine and the kids just prior to her death.\u00a0 The apparent suicide was brought on because there was a possibility that her children would be removed from her custody.\u00a0 I am planning to investigate all of this further by obtaining court records and such, as well as searching the newspaper for articles pertaining to this situation.\u00a0 I am also waiting on the coroner’s inquest that I requested a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n

So back to the 1930 census search.\u00a0 Because the above events occurred, the three children were split up.\u00a0 In 1930, Ray is found in the census living in St. Vincent’s Orphan’s Home, in Freeport, Stephenson, Illinois.\u00a0 When I initially found this, I wasn’t sure if it was really him.\u00a0 A cousin I found through Ancestry confirmed this, as her father was also placed in that home.\u00a0 Marcella was found living with her maternal grandmother, Margaret KRAMER Schwartz, in Aurora, Kane, Illinois, in the 1930 census.\u00a0 That left my grandfather, John.\u00a0 Where was he?<\/p>\n

I knew that at some points in his life, he lived with Theresa “Tessie” Karas, who until a few months ago we thought was a close family friend.\u00a0 Come to fin out, she was a Cahill and was John’s first cousin once removed.\u00a0 After talking to Tessie’s son and confirming that she was a Cahill, I also learned that John had at one point lived with Tessie’s sister Esther.\u00a0 So I had some leads to perhaps find him in the 1930 census.<\/p>\n

Why was this search difficult?\u00a0 My initial search for “John Cahill” (both exact and soundex) in Illinois did not turn him up.\u00a0 I tried searching by Kahill, Kayhill, Cayhill, Cael, Cabel, O’Cahill, and got nothing.\u00a0 I tried “John Karas” knowing that as some point he had lived with Tessie, and sometimes the census takers make mistakes on the last name of others living in the household (I have seen this many times).\u00a0 I searched for just “Cahill” in Illinois, wondering if he was enumerated a “J” or some other variation.\u00a0 No luck.\u00a0 I searched for Tessie and number of ways with no luck.\u00a0 So I tabled it.<\/p>\n

The a few days ago, I had a thought.\u00a0 My grandfather also went by “Jack,” so I decided to do a search using that name.\u00a0 Again, no luck.\u00a0 So I began to get creative.\u00a0 I was determined to find him right then and there…no more tabling the issue.<\/p>\n

\"1930I did a search for all Tessies living in Chicago.\u00a0 I read through the list and one stood out:\u00a0 Tessie Havas.\u00a0 I clicked on the link and saw her and Winslow J Havas.\u00a0 Now, I never knew Tessie’s husband’s name, all I had were the initials W.J.\u00a0 So far, this seemed to fit.\u00a0 I viewed the actual census sheet, and could tell that it was Karas and that it was simply indexed incorrectly.\u00a0 Additionally, I know that she only had one son, and he was born in 1933, so this really seems to be the right family.\u00a0 And finally, they lived on Carroll Avenue, which for me solidified my assumption that this was in fact the right Tessie.\u00a0 But…still no John.<\/p>\n

\"1930 Since the 1930 residence was on Carroll Avenue, I checked the other pages in the census.\u00a0 On the previous page…you guessed it…I found my grandfather.\u00a0 He was living with Tessie’s father, mother, and two brothers, on Carroll Avenue.\u00a0 Alas!\u00a0 I found him.\u00a0 But why was he not showing up in the search (keep in mind that I had also searched HeritageQuest to no avail).<\/p>\n

\"1930Curious as to how the family was indexed (or perhaps missed altogether) I got a little creative trying to find them in the search.\u00a0 I chose to look for Clarence (Tessie’s bother) since John and Anna were pretty common names.\u00a0 For some reason, I had no luck.\u00a0 So I search for John (Tessie’s brother), with a father of John and found them indexed as Isbill.\u00a0 That’s a far cry from Cahill.<\/p>\n

The Lesson<\/strong><\/h6>\n

Get creative with your searches.\u00a0 Soundex is a great tool, but in both of the above cases, it was useless.\u00a0 The soundex code for Karas is K-620, while the soundex code for Havas is H-120.\u00a0 The soundex code for Cahill is C-400, while the soundex code for Isbill is I-214.\u00a0 So soundex was no help for me in either situation.\u00a0 Besides, the other thing I don’t like about soundex is that it hangs on the first letter.\u00a0 So for example, Cahill also sounds like Kahill, but soundex will not find that variation, hence the reason I also search for Kahill, just in case.<\/p>\n

The one thing I’ve been trying to do with all of my searches is to think not only about how it sounds, but how it’s written.\u00a0 The writing and transcribing I think plays a bigger part in missed searches than the way a name sounds.\u00a0 For example, when searching for Cahill, I will also search for Cabill (soundex C-140).\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Sometimes the “h” looks like a “b.”\u00a0 Soundex would not help me here.\u00a0 I’ve picked this tip up while doing transcriptions.\u00a0 Sometimes a “c” can be mistaken for an “o” or an “r” for a “p” or in my case above, and “h” for a “k.”\u00a0 So be creative.\u00a0 Think about how it’s written and what letter could be mistaken for another and try your search by swapping that letter for the other.\u00a0 I think I may devise a cheat-sheet for quick reference that outlines each letter and the possible alternatives.\u00a0 If I do create it, I will make it available on my blog.<\/p>\n

As an aside, I did perform a Random Act of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) by submitting corrections to the Ancestry search using the Comments and Corrections link.\u00a0 Hopefully they will make the change (or at least add it as an alternate) so others have an easier time than I did.<\/p>\n

I hope that this little lesson helps all of you in your searches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bingo For a while now, I have been trying to find my grandfather in the 1930 census.\u00a0 It’s a weird situation, that goes a little something like this: My grandfather, John F “Jack” CAHILL was born in 1922.\u00a0 He had an older brother Raymond, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,25,26,29],"tags":[311,373],"class_list":["post-1050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to","category-genblog","category-personal-research","category-technology-genblog","tag-family-cahill","tag-tools-tech-ancestry","cat-27-id","cat-25-id","cat-26-id","cat-29-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3HcLI-gW","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1050"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4217,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions\/4217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}