Actually, I usually do quite well finding folks in the census using lots of tricks and some patience. In this case, it was partly a matter of time utility. It would be insanity to use Soundex for a name like Bauer -- there is only one consonant after the "B", so it would get far too many hits. Plus the problem, as mentioned, that there were 650 people named Bauer in the 1920 census just in Cook County-- with the name spelled correctly, before even doing variant spellings. So, since it really wasn't necessary for the purpose-- to find descendants--and the approximate year of birth was already established with other, I dropped it. I had been using Ferdinand as the easiest name to turn up in the family group. Linda