Tip of the day. Don't give up and be creative with your search terms. OK, be SUPER creative with your search terms.
I figured David and Ida HALTERMAN (spelled with an "A" after that "H") were going to be MIA on the 1940 census. They lived on the farm in Virginia for years! Have them there for the 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 census enumerations. They lived on the same farm basically until they died, he in 1965 and she in 1963.
Virginia was one of the early states that showed up on the FamilySearch index. I found others I was looking for, just not David and Ida.
I tried a lot of search terms trying to find them, first names, last name only, searched for her, searched for him, searched for one of them with the other name included. They were not to be found.
Last night, after a LONG weekend of printing the book, ya, that book, I finally finished the first print. I have more to do, but, I was tired of THE book and decided to reward myself with some genie snooping. With no goal in mind, just casual snooping, I found some fun things, and posted on Facebook, "Still cannot find David and Ida in the 1940. I still believe I never will."
And, then, because I either felt challenged or David and Ida were screaming, "HERE WE ARE, HERE", I did another search.
This time I searched only Ida, but, put in the county name and the enumeration district name, BAM, there they were.
Not indexed as HALterman, but as, HOLterman, see:
head David Holterman M 64 West Virginia
wife Ida Holterman F 65 West Virginia
daughter Sarah Holterman F 37 Virginia
Of course, I looked at the image, I see the A, not the O, I looked up and down the entire page, what do you think, A or O? You will note they got David, Ida and Sarah correct, and they all have that A thing going on.
The original full page of this image can be seen here. Tough call, eh?? I agree.
So, be creative, and remember, "spelling don't count" in genie! And, snicker, not in indexing either!
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4 comments:
Knowing it is supposed to be an "a" it seems to be a no brainer that it looks like an "a" to me. And it really does look like an "a" to me.
However, as someone who indexed quite a few pages, I can see the quandary of the indexer.
I would really like to see the groups allow us to index areas that we are familiar with next time they ask for volunteer indexers. If I could have worked on "my" county, I would have had an even higher rate of being correct, and probably would have argued with the arbitraters on some.
Glad the lost is found! That is definitely a serendipity moment!
I love it when 'finds' happen in just this way. David and Ida were just patiently waiting there for you until you finished your day's work with THE book. Glad that you found them Carol.
Cheers,
Jennifer
Looks like an "a" to me, but I guess it could go either way if you didn't recognise the surname. I use wildcards a lot when searching. Pleased that you found David & Ida :-)
Looks like an "a" to me. Glad you found them and didn't give up. I think Sherry has a good point about indexing areas one is familiar with. I'm sure I would be more accurate in my indexing.
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