28 April 2009

1870 Census at Pilot Family Search Site

Ok, is it just me or is there no way to search by location?


I am searching for someone I know is in the census, just to "prove" that I can find him at Family Search's site for the 1870 United States Census. The problem is that the last name is so messed up on the census that I cannot find him when searching for his last name. There are too many Johns born in 1859 or so living in 1870 to make that a practical search without a location entered in or chosen to narrow it down. Is there something about searching at Family Search that I am missing for the 1870 census?

The person I am searching for is John Habben, born ca. 1859 in Germany. He is in Adams County, Illinois, in 1870 as I've found the entry before in the census. I just wanted to prove I could do it at FamilySearch as well and I'm having difficulty.

2 comments:

  1. Loving a challenge & a puzzle, I did a search for "John", on the site. Of course, this returned 4700 matches. I then chose the Narrow by "Place" and chose Illinois - 152 results. Then I chose collection (since you said he was in the 1870 census for sure I chose that one - 59 results. Easily scanned for a German birth place (assuming they got that correct). Then I chose narrow by date, choosing 1850-59 AND 1860-69, this returned - 35 results for John's born in that timeframe. 35 isn't too hateful to troll through, however I see no German births. Since you said his name was messed up, I'd be interested to see if any of the ones returned were actually the correct John - this was a great exercise to see if the results would show the record that you already know should be there. So, what last name was listed???

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  2. I must be doing something incorrect because no matter how I do it, I do not get the option to search by residence.

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