My most used collection

There are a lot of collections at ancestry.com. Some I'm not even aware of at this point.

Not only does ancestry.com have a very large database of collections, there are millions of family trees stored there, too. Some are public and some are private.

I know the family trees are favorites to a lot of people. Before I give my thoughts on the family trees, let me change topics for a second.

Right now my profession is in the medical field. I work in the laboratory. There are some things that a co-worker can start and I'll finish for them without redoing the work they have already done. There is one area within the laboratory that if you start the test, you finish it. Or at the very least, you finish that step. It's the area where I've yet to meet a professional who is willing to put their name on the results that a co-worker started.

I treat genealogy like that specific area of the laboratory. I put my name on information I've researched myself. I attach documents to the ancestors that I've examined myself.

I have been known to check some of the tree hints, but I very rarely use them. Out of the millions of trees out there, out of the thousands pertaining to various family lines, I actually look at trees created by less than five people as a source of where I might go next. Each of these tree owners know I do look at their tree. They also have access to mine.

I believe their research. I trust their research. But other than those very few members, I rarely look at other trees. Therefore, the family tree collection is not my most used collection. It's my least used of the collections that I've actually used.

My most used collection has always been and will probably continue to be the Federal Censuses. It's still the quickest way to get an idea about where your ancestor might have been during that year. Since they are indexed, most of the times is a very quick way to find them.

The searches are based on how you spell the surname, and all the close matches to surnames that sound like that surname. You'll get a lot of results that aren't your ancestor. You'll get some that might be your ancestor. You might not get a result that's specific to your ancestor. If you can't find your ancestor in a specific census year it does not mean that they were not enumerated. Perhaps they weren't. But don't blindly assume that since you didn't find great, great, great grandpa in 1820 with a quick search that he must have been out of country at the time...or dead.

The indexers have a very hard job. Some of the images of the census pages are very hard to read. They are indexing images from pages that are at times over 200 years old. Some of those pages have gotten wet. Some of them have had a lot of wear and tear on them. Some of those enumerating the population have horrible handwriting. Some of them could not spell. Some of those enumerated, especially in the pre-1850 Federal Censuses were counted, but not named. I found a hospital in New York. It lists the patients, but only as a total number of males in the various age groups.

I have found a few pages in the 1810 Federal Census that were not indexed.

Once a person accepts the limitations of those indexed, then those Federal Census records are very handy tools to use. They will get us to where our ancestor was during that enumeration period. Once we know where they were at that time, we can then search all the other collections specific to that state, county and township.

What do you do if you can't find them in the index? Do you know where they might have been? If so, go to that state, county and township and search the actual images, page by page. If you think you know the county, but not the township, then search every township in that county. Same idea if you are fairly sure which state, but not which county. In my case, I suspect the state, but I have no idea which county or township. I am searching every township in every county. When I'm finished, unless I specifically find his name, I can't state that he wasn't there. If he was in an institution he won't be listed. Or is he one of those names that is impossible to read enough of the letters to exclude that entry?

I suspect the Federal Census collection will always be one of the most used collections no matter where they're stored, digitally and on microfilm.