Dear Maine Census Lookup, Thank you for your help (the first answer I received is below, and it affords some help in this detective search). You can see why this search is such a classic "brick wall" in genealogy research. There are several details that occurred to me after I submitted my inital request: 1. that John A. Richards' father was a Methodist or Baptist circuit-rider in Maine (I assume Baptist, since Richards is a Welsh name and the Welsh are heavily Baptist, but I don't know if this is a full or part time occupation since, uh, I was raised Episcopalian -- but maybe this information might help geographically), 2. that John A. Richards was a blacksmith, 3, that my grandfather was proud to have been able to bury his own father (when exactly I don't know, but I suspect between 1937 and 1954, when my father was living "back east" -- which for Californians means anything on the other side of the Rocky Mountains -- and I would label this evidence as a kind of "testimony from silence" since my father never mentioned his grandfather, and where the death occurred I also don't know, since my grandfather was a locomotive engineer with the Santa Fe railroad). In the California record of deaths there is a John A. Richards who died in Merced in the mid-1940s, but his birth place, according to the California census of 1910 was California. The other thing that occurred to me is that the middle initial "A." might be wrong, even though it comes from a printed source that is otherwise quite reliable. I have submitted a request for the 1885 marriage record from Santa Clara County, but still haven't received anything. If, by chance, someone read a simple capital H. or a sloppy rounded capital O as an "A." would this help in the search for John A. Richards? whose birthdate -- I surmise -- was between 1855 and 1865. I apologize for not having this marriage record from California before submitting my request. Again, thanks for any help. Sincerely yours, Jeff Richards Muenster, Germany From: <Riwilak@aol.com> To: <ME-CENSUS-LOOKUP-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 7:48 PM Subject: Re: lookup request > This is the only John A Richards I find in Maine in the 1880 Census. Maybe > it's him and he left another family before he went to California? > > 1880 Census Place: Farmington, Franklin, Maine > Source: FHL Film 1254479 National Archives Film T9-0479 Page 418D > > Relation Sex Marr Race Age Birthplace > John A. RICHARDS Self M M W 50 ME > Fa: ME Mo: ME > Sophronia RICHARDS Wife F M W 49 ME > Occ: Keeping House Fa: ME Mo: ME > Edmund R. RICHARDS Son M S W 22 ME > Occ: Attending School Fa: ME Mo: ME > Elmer E. RICHARDS Son M S W 19 ME > Occ: Attending School Fa: ME Mo: ME > Effie M. RICHARDS Dau F S W 14 ME > Fa: ME Mo: ME > Frank M. RICHARDS Son M S W 11 ME > Fa: ME Mo: ME > Susan E. COLLINS Other F S W 18 ME > Occ: Servant Fa: ME Mo: ME > Edith B. OTIS Other F S W 18 CA > Occ: Attending School Fa: ME Mo: SCOTLAND > > > ==== ME-CENSUS-LOOKUP Mailing List ==== > To view completed census transcriptions online > http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/census/inv/index.html > > ============================== > Join the RootsWeb WorldConnect Project: > Linking the world, one GEDCOM at a time. > http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com >