The "LOST" Census

I guess I should have some "order" in the blog/tips, but quite honestly, I think if I don't post my "ah HA!" moments when they happen, they may be lost out there forever.

My latest "AH-HA!" moment just happened a few minutes ago.

My grandmother lived in a VERY small town of Holton. Actually, it's more of a township, I believe, though, it has a zipcode....it is considered "unincorporated". She was maybe 5 miles north of "town" on 80 acres of land her dad owned. Her dad also owned an additional 40 just north of the 80. Next to the 40, was an additional 40 that her mother's dad owned (her grandfather). That 40 was sold to the McGeever family. I knew there was a John born in '24 and Elizabeth born in 23. Elizabeth married a Wilke and they were friends of my grandma's.

I was curious to their roots so I did a search plugging in Elizabeth McGeever, her year of birth, and "holton, MI".

Nothing except for in Illinois. I know nothing about them in Illinois, as least at this point.


None even CLOSE to the Muskegon County area. Not Newaygo. Not Oceana County. NOTHING.

UGH.

You will have "UGH" moments. They are bound to happen.

Here is what I did to overcome mine (at least one of them).

I knew Elizabeth Wilke was in Holton Cemetery. I knew her maiden name was McGeever. How many McGeevers do YOU know?? Exactly. So any McGeevers in that cemetery HAVE to be related, right?

In Cemetery Transcriptions (AMAZING website, BTW), I found a Patrick and Elizabeth McGeever. The dates seemed to make sense to be parents of John and Elizabeth so I went with it. Thankfully, whomever did the transcriptions also had headstone pictures (did I mention that headstones DO NOT lie?? USE THEM!).

I found this:




Yep. See that KEY piece of information on the headstone??

Illinois. ILLI-FREAKIN'-NOIS! WOOOOOHOOOO!!!

I plugged in the same information and used ILLINOIS versus Holton.

BA DA BING:





OK..I have NO idea why the other half of the above picture is not showing, but you get the idea: THAT WAS MY MCGEEVER. When I opened the census record, John and Elizabeth were listed as kids. WIN!

If you can't find what you want in the way you are looking, completely try to go about it another way! :) I now know the McGeevers had lived in Illinois (Thanks to a little thing called a headstone :) ).