Here is a copy of a very good article that appeared in the New England Historic Genealogical Society newsletter. It clearly shows why some people find things in the census that others do not. This is a free newsletter that gives a lot of information about New England people. To subscribe or view past issues www.newenglandancestors.org/articles/research/?page_id=659&attrib1=1&seq_num =6. Note the long URL that ends with =1&seq_num=6. You may have to copy and paste it. This also answers the query about whether one can find a female with only her first name and that of her daughter. Bette Online Census Indices — Advantages and Limitations by NEHGS Reference Librarian Christopher Challender Child With the gradual addition of the 1900 census to the heritagequestonline.com website, there is currently some form of an online index for every census from 1790 to 1930 (except the 1890 census, which was destroyed). However, finding your ancestors in online censuses is not always as quick and simple as some might think. Most of these indices are by head of household only, with the exceptions being the 1880 census on familysearch.org and the 1930 census on ancestry.com, both of which have every name indices. It is important to note the advantages these search engines can have. The main advantages of a book index are its convenience and the ease with which a researcher can find names with alternative spellings, or even alternative names (i.e. Mary/Polly). For instance, if you cannot find a "James Child" you could look on the same page for similar names such "Jas Child" or "James Childe" or "James Childs." With an online index, it is often necessary to type in the name exactly as it is written. However, many of these indices have advantages over a book index. Some people were not listed by their real names or often their names were spelled incorrectly. The familysearch.org results include spelling variations, which can help locate these normally hard-to-find people. This database has an additional advantage in that users can search for someone via their head of household. When I used the 1880 census on familysearch.org for my ancestor Mary Rosella Through in Pennsylvania, I didn't find anything when I searched for her by name. I knew she was born in Ohio and her mother was Anna (Sampson) Through. I also knew that her father left or died when she was young. I then entered only the first name Mary, and then added the first name of her mother Anna in the head of household field. I selected Pennsylvania as the census state and Ohio as the state of Mary's birthplace. This search was not restrictive to the unusual name, through which perhaps an alternate spelling of the name would not be picked up in a Soundex search. This search produced only three hits. It turned out that my ancestor was not listed under the surname "Through" at all, but Brown. Her mother later married and was widowed by 1880 to a Mr. Brown. Anna is listed with her three "Through children" although they are all listed as Brown. Also in the household is a boarder, "Hubbard Helman," who later became her husband "Herbert Heath Helman." He also would not have been found through traditional searching methods. It can be very difficult to find your ancestor via the index if an indexer misspelled or misread a surname. But these websites offer alternative searching strategies. Searching on just a first name can help you determine where your ancestor is located. Try the more unique first names to learn how the indexer read your family's last name. An online search of the 1920 Kansas census for my great grandfather Alton Challender produced no results. However, limiting my search to just "Alton" produced forty-three results and only one in his residence of Harvey County. He is listed as "Alton Challendar." While this would be much easier to find in a book index, the computer index is convenient and these simple tools still make searches fairly straightforward. Some searches might not be so easy. Searching for my grandmother "Daisy Dolores Horton" in the 1930 census for Kansas proved to be a difficult task. Searching on both "Daisy" and "Dolores" did not produce results, even when I broadened it to a Soundex search. I did not know the county she was living in at the time, so this proved to be more difficult. I then added the estimated age of Daisy into the search and found her listed as "Daisy Delaie Haton" in Westminster, Reno Co., Kansas. Haton would be very far away from Horton in a book index. This shows some clear advantages to the Internet searches. The search options offered by the familysearch.org 1880 census index can also be utilized to determine who a daughter married — although these searches are often more difficult and the results should always be checked further. Even discovering the maiden name of an ancestor via the 1880 census is possible. An example was when I traced the ancestry of talk show host David Letterman. I found his father in the 1930 census in Stockton, Greene County, Indiana, — Harry Joe Letterman, age 15, b. Indiana. Harry was living with his parents, Frank A. & Anna M., as well as Harry's widowed grandmother, Adalia Letterman, b. Iowa, father born in Ohio and mother born in Pennsylvania. This places Adalia's birth year around 1859 and it also says she married at age twenty-seven, after 1880. I performed an 1880 familysearch.org search for an Adalia, born around 1859 in Iowa, and living in Indiana. I found an Adalia Adams, age twenty-one, living in the very same town listed in the 1930 census. It also showed her parents John and Susan, born in Ohio and Pennsylvania, respectively. I was able to find Adalia's maiden name without her marriage or death record! Internet searches of the census and other resources can have many more advantages than the traditional book index. As search engines become more sophisticated, your long-unsolved genealogical mysteries may become easier to unravel.