Census Success

Sometimes you just have to be patient! I had never been able to find my mother's family in the 1920 census. According to her, they moved to Portage County, Wisconsin from Chicago sometime during that year.

I had tried several spellings for Churas: Ch, Ci, Cz, etc. without success. During the 1920 census the  census takers were supposed to collect the information in January. It seemed possible that weather was an issue: the family might have left Chicago before the census taker arrived and settled in Portage County after the census taker had visited the farm. At least it seemed to me that snow storms might have interfered with collecting data in January.

The explanation was much simpler, however. The indexer misread the name as "Chuvas" instead of "Churas." This mistake meant the name would not turn up in the index when I tried different spellings for the beginning of the name.

How did I find it? FamilySearch did, not me. They were living on Throop Street in Chicago's Fourth Ward.

2020 British Institute

The 2020 British Institute conference will be a three-day virtual event in October. You can sign up for one, two or all three days. Chris Paton will present "Tracing Your Irish Family History on October 12. "English Records: Fundamentals and Beyond" will be addressed by Paul Milner on October 13. The October 14 presentation is called "Hidden Treasures in Welsh Family History." There are four classes each day, including a question and answer session.

If you happen to be a member of the organization, a one-day registration is $89; otherwise, it will cost $99. Visit https://www.isbgfh.com/Virtual-British-Institute to gather more information or to register for one, two or three days.

June Homework

Explore home town newspapers! Best place to start: www.theancestorhunt.com


It's time to take your records of births, marriages and deaths and use the dates to find newspaper articles about those events. The following examples appeared in Waupaca, Wisconsin, weekly newspapers read on microfilm. Many newspapers are digitized and can now be found online.

1885: "Mr. Chris Danielson and Mrs. Anderson were married on Sunday by the Danish Methodist minister."

1898 "Born to Mr. & Mrs. Ernest Smith, on Sunday, February 20, a son."

1902 "Mrs. B. L. Hales died at her home in Hancock Saturday, April 19."

1906 "Miss Hattie Smith was very pleasantly surprised Tuesday evening by a number of her friends, the occasion being her birthday anniversary."

1921: "Almore Kermit, son of Mr./Mrs. Harry Rowe, was christened Sunday."


Newspapers tell of other events that affected the lives of your ancestors.

1883: "Perkins photo studios to close January 5, 1884."

1884: "A. L. Rowe of St. Lawrence says he got 2,460 bushels of potatoes off from ten acres. The variety was principally the Burbank seedling."

1885: "Robert Scott's pet parrot is home again."

1886: "J. H. Smith will soon start up his cheese factory with G. W. Buck as maker."

1897: "A. L. Rowe gave a talk on 'Silos' at the Ogdensburg Farmer's Institute."

1911: "Hazel Rowe was listed as a June graduate of Waupaca High School."

1914: "E. W. Smith has purchased a Reo automobile."

1918: "Area schools are closed due to the influenza outbreak."

Brick Wall Breakthrough

We have continued to research while we are "at home." The Brandner family in Dick's paternal line has been a brick wall since early in our genealogy quest. Ferdinand and Catherine came from "Bohemia." We decided to look for a son's second wife without much success until I used our last resort: the trees on Ancestry.

A new source turned up: someone had attached Joseph Brandner's baptismal record! I followed that item to its original post and found a wonderful researcher from Milwaukee who is producing a database of all immigrants from Haberspirk (and surrounding villages) that settled in Wisconsin, particularly Outagamie County. What a find! The church records from the area are available online at portafontium.eu. If anyone is researching that area, use the link.

The baptismal records from the area include the names of the father's and mother's parents, so we could add one more generation to the Brandner line.

Keep researching and continue to return to former databases!

More Free Webinars

Legacy is providing free webinars during weekends in June. You will need to register via the link below. I have also posted the titles of the selections for this coming weekend. First, here is the announcement from Legacy:

"In June, treat yourself to our Free Webinar Weekends with FamilyTreewebinars.com. We are bringing you both 1) brand new webinars and 2) unlocked webinars from the members-only library. You will have free access to these throughout each weekend. They will then be available anytime to webinar members.

Each weekend we bring to you a different track of classes:

Technology, June 12-14, 6 classes
Great Britain, June 19-21, 6 classes
African American, June 26-28, 6 classes

To participate, register for the live introductory webinar at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com/June which will give you instructions for viewing the classes."


Here are the titles for the first weekend.

Metadata for Digital Images by Thomas MacEntee (NEW!)

Tracking Your Digital Breadcrumbs: Bookmarks, Toolbars, Notes, and Other Applications by Cyndi Ingle (members-only webinar to be unlocked)

Google Drive: an Office in the Cloud by DearMYRTLE and Russ Worthington (members-only webinar to be unlocked)

Top Tech Tips for the Technologist and the Genealogist by Geoff  Rasmussen (members-only webinar to be unlocked)

Tech Savvy Scrapbooking & Journaling for Family History by Amie Bowser Tennant (members-only webinar to be unlocked)

Microsoft Word Series - #3 Formatting Tips and Tricks by Thomas MacEntee (members-only webinar to be unlocked)

June Television

The first episode of "The Genetic Detective" premiered last week. This series follows genetic genealogist CeCe Moore as she uses her research skills for crime solving. By working with police departments and crime scene DNA, Moore is able to trace the path of a violent criminal's family tree to reveal their identity and help bring them to justice. You can find it on ABC Tuesdays at 9 PM if you have an interest.


"Grant," a 3-part series about Ulysses S. Grant, was presented by the History Channel last week. The miniseries is based on the bestselling non-fiction book by Ron Chernow and chronicles the life of Ulysses S. Grant, the eighteenth President of the United States. Look for repeats.