Is That Grandma or the Baby?

This 1850 census entry from Allegany County, Maryland, is split over two census pages. The enumeration for the household headed by John Fletcher indicates the dwelling number is 2620 and the family number is 2658.

1850 U. S. Census, Allegany County, Maryland, district 9, page 375 (upper left), John Fletcher household, dwelling 2620, family 2658 [continued on next page]; digital image at  Ancestry.com. 

The enumerator apparently corrected the dwelling and household numbers for the household members who appear on the subsequent page, writing them over as 2620 and 2658 to indicate they should appear as being in the household headed by John Fletcher and that they were not their own separate household.

I'm not certain about the relationship among the various members of this household. That's not the point of this post--but it is a concern. However, that's not my immediate question.

How old is the Amanda who is listed last in the household? Ancestry.com transcribed the age as 72. I'm thinking that the age is the fractional part of a year with 12 written as the denominator.

For those who understandably need the full image, click on the image below to pull up the full page few of this census record.

Here is  Ancestry.com's database transcription of this entry:

Always look at the image. I'm thinking that's not Grandma. It's the baby.

Harry Shipe in the SSDI--Four Databases--Three Results

The "Social Security Death Index" often confuses researchers.  The confusion usually centers on someone who is not in the database that "should" be.

In the case of Harry Shipe that is not the problem. He is in the database.

Brief Background

The actual file used to create the several renderings of "Social Security Death Index" is the "Death Master File" maintained by the Social Security Administration. This file contains the zip code of last residence of the deceased and the zip code where the last benefit (if any) was sent for the deceased. It includes also the date of birth and date of death. Not every dead person who had a social security number is in the file. It is only those deaths that were reported to the Social Security Administration. The details we will not go into here. Fairly simple stuff most of the time.

Except apparently for Harry Shipe.

Harry Shipe died in Illinois in December of 1979. He was a a first cousin of my Grandmother Neill. The fact that Harry is a grandson of Ira Sargent should have been a clue that there'd be something interesting in researching him. And there was. 

The dates of birth (5 May 1898) and death (December 1979) are the same for Harry in all three databases. The other information is slightly different as can be seen in the screen shots of the results.

Ancestry.com

 Ancestry.com 's results screen for Harry Shipe is shown here:

GenealogyBank

The result from Genealogybank.com  is shown here:

FamilySearch

The database result for Harry Shipe from FamilySearch is shown here:

NEHGS

Thanks to Randy Seaver!


NEHGS American Ancestors has:

HARRY SHIPE
Birth date: May 5, 1898.
Death date: Dec, 1979.
SSN: 351-32-6319.
State Issued: IL.
Residence location: Sutter, Illinois, 62373.
Residence county: Hancock.
Payment location: MENDON, Illinois, 62351.
Payment county: ADAMS

It may help to see the results in a chart:

Website	Last Residence Zip	Last Residence Location	Last Benefit Zip	Last Benefit Location
Ancestry.com	62373	Sutter, Hancock, Illinois	62351	Mendon, Adams, Illinois
GenealogyBank	62373	Sutter, Hancock, Illinois	62373	Mendon/Tioga; Adams, Illinois [sic]
FamilySearch	62373	Sutter, Hancock, Illinois	Not given	Not given
NEHGS	62373	Sutter, Illinois	62351	Mendon, Illinois

From the United States Postal Service website:

• 62351--is Mendon, Illinois and Tioga, Illinois.
• 62373--is Sutter, Illinois.

The locations are pulled from the zip codes. The last residence is consistent. It is the last benefit that is somewhat confusing.  I am not understanding why the zip codes are different in the different databases. I understand that the database provides a last residence zipcode and a last benefit zipcode.  I am working on getting an answer to why the difference. Stay tuned--when (and if) I have an answer we'll post an update.

Oh, why didn't I mention Fold3?

Stay tuned for that as well.

Direction Going Forward

We have received some good comments behind the scenes about the blog and going forward into 2013--thanks.

Based upon those, we're going to keep the webinar announcements here to a minimum--email casefileclues@gmail.com if you would like to be on that list. We do have to pay the bills (grin!).

That said...

Ads for "offers," sales on genealogical databases, equipment sales, will not be used as blog posts. I don't like to weed through those and I know that readers don't either. So we don't. We may prattle on about Rufus D. Stephens in upstate New York pre-1850, the nuances of the Social Security Death Index, but I'm not going to blog about how you should buy the latest gizmo that you simply cannot "do" genealogical research without.

We are also not going to discuss what I broadly call "genealogical politics." There are other blogs that discuss these topics (including what genealogical societies should "do" or "not do," what the role of professional genealogical organizations should be, what it "means" to be a genealogist, what a professional is, etc.) I have enough of these sort of conversations at work, so I'm not going to have them here--that sort of verbiage you will have to read elsewhere.

And sometimes blog posts may seem disjointed and we may leave you hanging on a certain person or problem for a while.

That's because many of the research based posts are written as I'm researching--usually as a way to keep me focused and organize my thoughts. So--sometimes I don't know the answers yet.

A Rough Rider Administrates

We have discussed Rough Rider Heye Albers before, but a search on

 

 Genealogybank.com for him located an additional reference from 1922, long after his time as a Rough Rider was over.


His name appears in a legal notice when he was apparently appointed the administrator of the estate of Carolina Johes in Bernalillo County, New Mexico.

Date: Wednesday, December 27, 1922  

Paper: Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, NM) --obtained on 

 

 Genealogybank.com

From this, we know that Jones left no valid will and that she was dead by 11 January of 1922. That's about all we can safely infer from the document. This is one nice thing about newspapers being indexed--items of this type appear on full text searches. Otherwise locating Heye as the administrator would be difficult because indexes we currently have to records of this type only index the name of the deceased individual whose estate is being settled.

Probably the easiest thing to do would be to attempt to locate Carolina Jones in the 1920 census. Of course, records of her estate settlement would also be helpful, but they do not have to indicate whether or not there is any relationship between Heye Albers and Carolina Jones.

Don't ignore those legal notices when searching the newspapers at 

 

 Genealogybank.com. 

New On FamilySearch 9 January 2013

New on FamilySearch today:

• Washington, County Naturalization Records, 1850-1982
• United States, General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934--indexed

Ira Sargent Breaks His Hip in 1911

Even seemingly meaningless clippings like this reference to a broken hip can be useful.

The Quincy Daily Journal;

Date: Jul 25, 1911;

Section: None;

Page: 7

;digital

 image Quincy [Illinois] Public Library website, http://www.quincylibrary.org, obtained 9 January 2013.

The Quincy Daily Journal;

 Date: Jul 25, 1911;

 Section: None;

 Page: 7

;digital 

This item tells me several things--that my ancestor was institutionalized at the Bartonville Hospital and that he was alive on 25 July 1911. If this event had happened before vital registration, the date may have been more significant. And, if these hospital records are closed, sealed, or not extant, this clipping provides evidence of Ira's institutionalization.

Newspaper clippings may make mention of items that are in closed "public" records. Is there a chance that something that's in a closed or non-extant record is mentioned in a newspaper that you can access?

Updated on FamilySearch 8 January 2013

The following items were listed as being updated on FamilySearch on 8 January 2013:

• United States, Index to Indian Wars Pension Files, 1892-1926
• United States, Civil War Widows and Other Dependents Pension Files

Photos From Heaven

Don't get me wrong, I love access to data.

I just like to know where on earth it comes from. I'm not one to get all aglow over information when there's no apparent way to judge the reliability of that information.

 Ancestry.com released a new database recently "Family Photo Collection, c. 1850-2000."

Here is a screen shot of one result from that collection made on 8 January 2013.

In the "more about the database section," it states that: "This database is a collection of customer-submitted ancestral and relative photos." That seems a little bit vague to me.

There is no submitter information on this photo.

This database must be a work in progress, must not contain some photos in the online trees, or both. There are individuals that I know have pictures submitted in publicly available online trees whose pictures do not appear in this database. How complete the database is at this point is not my concern.

What concerns me is that I really have no idea where this picture came from--other than Ancestry.com. How do I know it is who the database purports it to be? Who submitted it? Where did they obtain it?

All of those are questions the genealogist should be asking. Of course the reliability of the identity of any photograph is based upon the perceived knowledge of the informant. Grandma Neill may tell me that the picture she has is of her Grandpa Trautvetter and, unless someone else can corroborate that, I only have Grandma's word on which to base my photo identification. The difference in that case is that at least in my sources I can identify my Grandma Neill as the informant. I don't have the option of identifying the informant on some of these photographs.

What About Pictures in Grandma's Bible? Those aren't always identified either.

That's true. But at least if I find the pictures in Grandma's old Bible, at least I have some iota of hope that they are related to her family in some way shape or form. I have no idea where images that "pop up" in an online collection actually came from at all. They maybe accurately identified or they may not. I can at least indicate that I located a picture in Grandma's old Bible.

I can't say that about unsourced pictures on a website. Saying "I got it off the internet" and don't know who submitted it is about the vaguest source citation one can make.

I'm not anti-Ancestry.com , I'm just pro-documentation.

------------------
Update: 9:34 AM CST-8 January 2013

John Newmark (who blogs at http://blog.transylvaniandutch.com), reminded me that Ancestry.com already has a database called "Public Member Photos & Scanned Documents" at http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1093&enc=1. 

 

That description states:

"This database contains photos submitted to Ancestry family trees by users who have indicated that their tree can be viewed by all Ancestry members. These photos can change over time as users edit, remove, or otherwise modify the data in their trees. You can contact the owner of the tree to get more information."

 

For these photos, one can see at least the tree to which it was originally submitted. 

-----------------------------------

 

Death Place is Actually Not

The "NO!" that is written on these images may look like a child did it, but that does not change the fact that the "death information" in the Social Security Death Index at Ancestry.com is NOT the place of death.

It is usually the location where the last benefit was sent or the residence at the time of death. It is not the place of death.

This screen shot is how Ancestry.com wanted to merge data from their Social Security Death Index into my "online tree." The location in the Social Security Death Index is not the place of death.

I was hoping that with the changes in the "trees" and the "merging" feature that this change would be rolled out.

Apparently not.

Am I the only one who is bothered by this? Please let Ancestry.com know that we need to accurately reflect what the records say. Being correct matters.

It is time to stop letting the programmers and database managers dictate.

Do the Ancestry.com Trees Ignore the Obvious?

Color me confused. The "leaves" on Ancestry.com trees continue to confuse me. This time it appears that the "leaves" are leaving the obious behind.

The first screen shot in this blog post shows the page for a Harry E. Shipe showing the information that I currently have for Harry in my file. When this screen shot was made, all "leaves" or hints on Ancestry.com for Harry had been exhausted and the only records on Ancestry.com linked to him were the 1900 through the 1940 census enumerations for Harry and his family. There were no additional hints for Harry.

A search of Ancestry.com databases resulted in two hits for Harry Shipe that clearly matched the individual in my database. What is confusing to me is why those database entries did not turn up as leaves. 

This first match is the World War I draft card for Harry in Ancestry.com's U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards database . His name is a match to what I have in my database and the month, year, and place of birth match as well. It seems strange that this Wold War I draft card was not an automatic match to the entry in my tree.

There is an entry for Harry in the Social Security Death Index at Ancestry.com as well. This entry contained the same first and last name was my entry, in addition to matching the month, year, and place of birth. 

It seems highly unusual that these two entries were not automatic matches for my Harry Shipe.  The only automatic matches that Ancestry.com gave me for Harry were from U. S. Census records.

Why Did These Items Not Match?

To be honest, I am not certain as I do not really understand completely how Ancestry.com arrives at the "leaf" matches. I do know that some of the suggested leaves come from connections other researchers have made. Harry never married and had no children and was only survived by several first cousins. It is possible that no one has really researched him and linked all the records to him.

Note: the screens were current when this blog post was written. Given the fact that the leaves appear to be using connections made by users, subsequent searches may not reproduce these matches exactly.

New on FamilySearch 5 January 2013

The following were updated on 5 January 2013

• Hawaii, Honolulu Index to Passengers, Not Including Filipinos, 1900-1952
• United States, Index to Passenger Arrivals, Atlantic and Gulf Ports, 1820-1874
• Colorado, Statewide Divorce Index, 1900-1939
• United States, Index to Indian Wars Pension Files, 1892-1926
• United States Social Security Death Index

My Blogs

For those who are new...

I currently write and maintain the following blogs:

• Genealogy Tip of the Day  http://genealogytipoftheday.blogspot.com/ 
• One quick tip every day on a wide variety of topics--meant to be short, quick, and to the point.
• Rootdig.com http://rootdig.blogspot.com
• Postings on a variety of research topics--difficulties with websites, quick analysis of records or sources, some opinion, research methdology, etc. No press releases, no "news," and no posting  of offers from database providers, equipmentn sellers, etc.
• Genealogy Transcriber http://genealogytranscriber.blogspot.com
• One piece of handwriting posted everyday--can you read it?
• Search Tip of the Day  http://genealogysearchtip.blogspot.com/
• A database search tip--published irregularly--not really every day, but I don't post something just so I can say i posted something every day. Focuses on database and web searching.
• Casefile Clues Blog http://blog.casefileclues.com
• A blog that complements my fee-based how-to newsletter, Casefile Clues.

Viewing or subscribing to the above blogs are free.

Corrected Decimals in Illinois Database at Ancestry.com

An earlier post on this blog ("Does Ancestry.com Know About Decimals?") noted decimal point errors in Illinois, Public Land Purchase Records, 1800-1990 at Ancestry.com. [note--this database is availalble free of charge on the Illinois State Archives website at http://www.ilsos.gov/isa/landsrch.jsp]

A search today of that database shows that the error has been fixed and the price per acre, total price, and number of acres has been corrected.

A set of search results for Andrew Trask shows the correct amounts.

Thanks to Ancestry.com for making the correction.

Looking at an 1855 Manifest--Getting the Willies

This post is for those who have never seen a mid-19th century manifest. The image is typical for the era and, as we will see, makes a point that black and white images may hide some clues.

Lines 324, 325, 326 area the names of interest on this 1855 manifest of New York arrivals. No relationship is stated among the three men with the last name of Willi and while it can be assumed there is some relationship, the exact nature of that relationship cannot be determined from the manifest. Thomas was the person of interest.

Like most of the others on this manifest, the Willies were listed as farmers from Switzerland headed to New York.  It is doubtful that the final destination of all the passengers was actually New York and the use of hat destination may have simply indicated their port of arrival. Travelers with the same last name have their last name omitted to make less writing for the official writing out the manifest. The fact that the name on line 325 has the last name written down when the name on line 324 has the name written down as well probably has no significance because line 325 is the first name on the "next" page. It may not be clear, but black line appears between lines 324 and 325 and appears to be either a crease from a fold  in the manifest or the binding between two pages.  

Ship: William Tell; Arrival: 23 October 1855; Arrival: New York, United States; Microfilm Serial: M237; Microfilm Roll: 157; Line: 28; List Number: 1056.; digital image on  Ancestry.com. 

This may be one of those times where the film may be hiding a thing or two. Also looking at the entire image makes it clear the line goes across the entire image and not just part of it. 

Using the Old Search Located Theodore in 1900

A follower on Twitter mentioned that the search I was unable to perform earlier today on the 1900 census (using a year of birth when the year of birth and age for a person were inconsistent) could be done on the "old search." It worked correctly as expected with no difficulties.

This is the search screen--in the old search.

Here is the result:

Exactly what I was expecting to find.

I've tried to use the "new search" (the one that comes up by default) as the advantages of it are constantly being touted by  Ancestry.com and quite a few professionals.

However, this is not the first time that the old search has worked exactly the way I thought it should when the new search did not.

The old search gives the researcher control--and without the "dropdown" list of places that has been a continual thorn in my side due to missing locations.

And I like control and things that work they way they are supposed to.

The instructions for toggling back and forth are copied from my Search Tip of the Day blog.

Toggling Between New and Old Search at Ancestry.com

There are still times when the "old search" at Ancestry.com is preferable to the "new search" at Ancestry.com. Do you know how to go back and forth between the two?

On the main  Ancestry.com home page, slide your mouse to the word "Search" on the upper left hand portion of your window. When you do that you should see a menu come up--click on "Search all Records." 

Then in the upper right part of that page you should see a small link that says "go to old/new search." Clicking on that link will take you to the "other" search form.

I

Year of Birth Searches at Ancestry.com-1900 Census

Hopefully I'm just missing something on this search at Ancestry.com where I'm using the year of birth as one of my search terms. Or maybe because this entry is somewhat unusual the search at  Ancestry.com is not working quite the way I think it should. Or maybe it's just because I am looking for Trautvetters.

This screen is the "record" for Theodore Trautvetter in the 1900 census at Ancestry.com.

A close look will indicate that something is amiss here. The entry indicates Theodore was born in October of 1883 and immigrated to the United States in 1853 and was married in 1871. Those things simply cannot happen.

The image below is part of the Trautvetter family entry from Rocky Run Township:

I can easily see how the year was transcribed as 1883. I'm not certain I would have transcribed it that way, but I can see how one might think that is what is said. There are two other "4"s in this entry and there are numerous other "8"s all of which have the loop on the bottom. Of course, an 1883 birth is not consistent with being aged 56 or being married 29 years, but that is a separate issue. Transcribers are told to read it as it looks. And the transcription of the year is not really the point of this post.

The age and year of birth are as transcribed in the Ancestry.com database are inconsistent for someone living in 1900. I wondered if this would impact searches done for Theodore using a year of birth. I thought that 1883 should be the year of birth used if querying the database using birth year as a search term.

However, it did not work. I used a birth of 1883 (plus/minus two years) as my search terms (along with a first name and the 1900 residence)--image shown below. There were no results.

Maybe 1843 was the year of birth in the database since it was the age. I thought that would allow me to find Theodore. I tried again, using the 1843 year of birth (plus/minus 2) and still obtained no results. 

Just to be certain that the location or name were not the problem I removed the year of birth completely and searched for the first name of Theodore in Rocky Run Township, Hancock County, Illinois.

Sure enough, Theodore came up as a result.

What I don't understand is why using the age as a search term resulted in a failure to locate him.

Hopefully either Ancestry.com or a reader can point me to the error of my ways.

Unless it's a problem with the Ancestry.com search.

More New US Material On FamilySearch

Apparently, FamilySearch added two updates after I made my update today.

These US materials were updated today:

• Indiana, Marriages, 1811-1959
• Texas, Comanche County Records, 1858-1955

Is That Really Julius Cawiezell's Boarder?

Index entries and database transcriptions can be misleading. This entry for Julius Cawiezel from the 1930 census database at FamilySearch.org is a case in point. 

Looking at the entry for Julius, it appears as if the 64-year old has a 12-year old boarder living with him.

It seems pretty straightforward. Arnold could easily be a grandson living with his grandfather. Not exactly. Arnold is not even living with Julius.

A look at the actual 1930 census entry for Julius indicates that the boarder Arnold Klaus is not actually living in the Cawiezel household. Cawiezell is living at 716 1/2 West 1st Street in Davenport, Iowa. The address for the 12-year old boarder appears to be 927 West 3rd Street along with a notation.

1930 U. S. Census, city of Davenport, Scott County, Iowa, ED 11 Sheet 2A, obtained digitally on   Ancestry.com

Increasing the magnification on the image indicates that the Klaus entry has been "squeezed in" after Cawiezel's entry and is not a part of his household. In fact, the notation on the left-hand side is a reference to where Klaus' entry should be--line 43 on sheet 9A.

The notation does not apparently mean that the entry should have been on line 43, but instead is a reference to the household in which Arnold should have been listed. Note that the address is correct--927 can be seen as the house number.

1930 U. S. Census, city of Davenport, Scott County, Iowa, ED 11 Sheet 9A, obtained digitally on   Ancestry.com

There is a notation to the left of the entry that there is "1-Boarder" and that the reference is to line 12 on Sheet 2A. That is where Arnold is listed right after Cawiezell.

Always look at the original. In cases like this the database just does not contain all the information because annotations such as these do not "fit the form."

In this case, it was assumed by the transcriber that the boarder listed after a "head of household" was actually living in that household. In reality, the head of household was on an entirely different page.

Updates On FamilySearch

Today's updates on FamilySearch--US materials

Texas, Comanche County Records, 1858-1955

Washington, Seattle, Passenger Lists, 1890-1957

Theodore Trautvetter--$25 Reward

You never know what you will find in the papers--or who you will find is missing in the papers. 

In January of 1890 my uncle apparently disappeared and his family offered a $25 reward for his location as mentioned in this image from a Quincy, Illinois newspaper.

Publication: The Quincy Daily Whig; Date: Jan 18, 1890; digital image, Quincy Historical Newspaper Archive, Quincy [Illinois] Public Library Website, www.quincylibrary.org, accessed 2 January 2013

Theodore returned home at some point and remained there until his death (he is enumerated with his wife in Rocky Run Township, Hancock County, Illinois, in the 1900 census) . Since I know he was missing in January of 1890, I should search local Warsaw newspapers for that time period for additional references to his disappearance. It may be that the weekly paper has more information than the Quincy newspaper did.

Consider searching for your "missing" ancestors in the newspaper. Perhaps someone advertised for information on their whereabouts and perhaps they were missing to their contemporary relatives as well.

I have a cousin, Arsulus Rampley who "went missing" in the 1920s and was never located. A court case in the 1940s referenced his disappearance and declared him legally dead, but I've never conducted newspaper searches to see if there is any mention of him. With that unusual name, locating references (if any were published) should not be too difficult and perhaps I should do that.

Happy 2013 from Rootdig.com

We're just under the wire in wishing readers a "Happy New Year."

Happy 2013! Hopefully you are ready to continue your family history discoveries in the new year.

 Fans and viewers have called our webinars one of the best genealogical bargains around. Today, to celebrate the beginning of 2013, we're offering a coupon code through 11:45 PM 2 January 2013 that will reduce your webinar purchase price by 60%.

Coupon code is yearend

View the list of webinars here:

http://rootdig.blogspot.com/2012/08/updated-list-of-genealogy-webinars.html

This is the last webinar email you will receive from this email address--if you would like updates about webinar offerings, please email casefileclues@gmail.com to be added. 

Thanks for your support in 2012! It is appreciated.

Michael

More Confusing Ancestry.com Searches

Let's get this straight. I pay to use Ancestry.com with this thing called money. I do not have a complementary subscription. I pay for it myself. Let me also say that I get a lot of "good use" out of the digital images that are on Ancestry.com. Generally speaking I am a fan of their images--otherwise I couldn't access that material at home while the dog sits at my feet.

However...

I am confused and irritated with the way some of the global searches work at Ancestry.com  A precise search that really should have a manageable number of hits, returns too many results.

A search today for:

• first name: mar*
• last name: cawiezell (exact)
• died 1893--plus or minus 1

gave me "Too many matches."

On what planet? 

Cawiezell is one of the most unusual names I am searching. I fail to see how this search generates too many matches and overloads the system. Something simply is not working correctly with the global search feature.

If Ancestry.com wants me to perform global searches, then let's get this global search feature working and lets get it working correctly. This is not the fist time I have had this problem. Ironically, if I chance my search to:

• first name: john
• last name: smith
• died 1893--plus or minus 1

I do not get an error message--in fact I get a screen showing 4,765 hits. That's "too many" for me to go through and view manually, but apparently it's not "too many" for Ancestry.com to process. 

Here's the screen shot of my results for Mar* Cawiezell just done at 2:10 PM Central time 1 January 2013. 

Now, to add to the confusion, if I change my search to:

• first name: mar*
• last name: cawiezell (Soundex)
• died 1893--plus or minus 1

I do not get the same problem. This search is less restrictive than the one I just performed. If the first search gets "too many hits," then this less-restrictive search should get even more than "too many hits." This second search (with the Soundex turned on) resulted in 456 hits. 

I realize the search "worked." 

The problem is that the first search should have worked also. The fact that the first search generates an error makes the mathematician in me wonder if something's not really working correctly.

Ancestry.com subscribers rely on these indexes and some of them make conclusions based upon searches performed with these indexes. 

Results that are illogical make one question whether the search is operating in the way the user thinks it is.

And for this user, that does not make for an "good" customer experience and it irritates this paying subscriber. 

And the dog at my feet's not happy about it either because lengthy blog posts delay her outside time.

Adjacent Locations in non-US Locations on Ancestry.com

This is a partial screen shot from  Ancestry.com.

I appreciate the recent changes that they have made in their search features. However, I am always on the lookout for enhancements. I realize and am painfully aware that European borders present difficulties to researchers.

However, when searching for counties or states withing the United States,  Ancestry.com gives users the ability to include neighboring counties or states for that location in the search.

This is helpful if I am not precisely certain where the person was born or living--depending upon what I'm trying to find and what record I am searching. This allows me to easily search for someone in Illinois or neighboring states all at once or search a census for someone who is in Coshocton County, Ohio, and the bordering counties without conducting those searches separately.

It is too bad that this feature is not allowed for European and other locations. I realize that it might not be the easiest feature to add.

But I would find it more valuable than some of the "interactivity" features and the "mobile" features. Allowing me to create more customized searches enhances my customer experience. I don't give on whit about some of the other "enhancements"  Ancestry.com has added recently.

The problem is that  Ancestry.com knows I'll probably keep subscribing anyway--until FamilySearch tweaks their features.