I need someone to help me if possible. My great great grandfather, John M. STEWART and wife, Mary Augusta FOSTER resided in Kearny, Hudson Co., NJ. I have his Civil War papers from NARA. It gives the names of his children, including my great grandmother, Julia Frances STEWART who married John Wesley BROSS. Julia had a sister, named "Serlena" in her father's Civil War papers. FINALLY!! today I found her in the 1910 US Census in Newark, 15-WD. Her brother, George STEWART (1869-1911) was living with her and her children. (He was foreman for the Clark's Thread Mill.) In the 1910 census, "Serlena" is listed as "Selena" JACOBUS. She is 48 years of age, says that she is married and has been for 31 years. That she gave birth to 12 children, 9 of which are living. She is noted as "Head" and no husband is named. Children named are: Bertha JACOBUS, 23 years; Raymond JACOBUS, 19 years; Irene JACOBUS, 20 years; George JACOBUS, 16 years; Myrtle JACOBUS, 13 years and Hazel JACOBUS, 10 years. These six children are all single; all born in NJ. Raymond is an apprentice in a machine shop. Irene is clerk in the Thread Mill and 16 years old George, is an order boy in a grocery. Can anyone help me with the other children--three more should be living--probably older than Bertha? Can anyone connect with this family? This is the first census that I have been able to find Serlena/Selena. I cannot find her in the 1900 census; nor the 1920. I cannot find the given name of her husband. I will appreciate any and all help. Thank you. Mona, Richmond, IN

Hi All, There have been a few posts recently about people not being able to find certain names in various census. I too had this problem and wrote to the list in search of Mary Brown (and others) in the 1930 census. Things have been a little busy over my way, and I never got to send replies to everybody thanking them for their help. So, from me, thank you to everyone on the list who responded and helped me. You are a great crowd. Thank you very very much. Despite all the great efforts of those who tried to help, we were unsuccessful in finding Mary Brown in 1930. I think that this is situation is one that we all face from time to time. People not being found in this or that census There was a recent trial through Gales where you could trial ancestry plus, and through many many searches, I did find the people that I was searching for. As there have been a few posts recently on this subject, I thought I'd drop a few lines on how I did find them. Some of this may appear to be a little obvious, but sometime we all need a reminding now and then. 1. Use the * within your name searches. So, for example, if you are seaching for a Von Albatruss, search for vonal* as well as vanal*. Obviously if can't find the full name directly, you have to take more extreme measures in searching. In this particular case, it could be that when the census was scanned, that the "b" was indexed as a "d". I know that you may end up with 400 names to search through (as I did when I was searching my names), but consider the benefits if you did find them using this method. What are your other options? You just have to consider all the possibilities. Shorten the stem (characters before the *) as much as possible. So, in Mona’s recent query, she was looking up Jacobus, but couldn’t find them in the 1900 or 1920 census. Consider that it may have been scanned and indexed as Yacobus. If you can’t find the name using what you know, you must consider these other options. 2. Consider searching a different index. I have found that the index produced by Proquest was much better than Ancestry in certain situations. Remember that Ancestry was one of the first online genealogy websites, and that some of its first indexes were created by people manually transcribing names. (Only one of the earlier indexes was created this way, so I believe). Proquest being a newer site is more likely to have used computerised techniques for all its indexing. 3. Do the lateral sweep. Remember that many people had relatives that lived close to them. In one case, I couldn’t find the subjects in the 1920 census, but I did a search on the brother in laws and you would not believe this but the people who I was searching for lived next door!!!! 4. Look for other unrelated people who lived in the same street. So, for example John Doe lives 6 doors down from Albert Von Albatruss in 1910, but you can’t find Albert Von Albatross in the 1920 census, then do a search for John Doe in 1920. At least this search will bring up the right census page, and then do a visual scan to see who lived 6 doors down. It won’t always work, John Doe may have died, moved, as may have Albert. But at least its another way of searching through a census where the index does not list the person you are researching. 5. Consider all options. Can’t find them? Perhaps they stayed with an Uncle, sister or the wife’s Mother when the wife was due to give birth. Lastly, just remember to think a little wider. If the in-laws died, go back a generation, then come forward, then use those names as a search criteria. It is a plan that is very time consuming, but for me it has paid off. Whilst my relatives names did not come up in any index search using the names that I expected (with the 100 spelling variations), I eventually did find my relatives through points 1 and 3. The names were not correctly indexed. Point 4 did not work for me, as my relatives seemed to be renting all the time, and never stayed in the same place in Newark for more than 1 year (I have no idea why). I hope that this helps and good luck with your searching! Regards, Steve [email protected] writes: > I need someone to help me if possible. > > My great great grandfather, John M. STEWART and wife, Mary Augusta FOSTER > resided in Kearny, Hudson Co., NJ. I have his Civil War papers from NARA. It > gives the names of his children, including my great grandmother, Julia Frances > STEWART who married John Wesley BROSS. Julia had a sister, named "Serlena" in > her father's Civil War papers. FINALLY!! today I found her in the 1910 US > Census in Newark, 15-WD. Her brother, George STEWART (1869-1911) was living with > her and her children. (He was foreman for the Clark's Thread Mill.) > > In the 1910 census, "Serlena" is listed as "Selena" JACOBUS. She is 48 years > of age, says that she is married and has been for 31 years. That she gave > birth to 12 children, 9 of which are living. She is noted as "Head" and no > husband is named. Children named are: Bertha JACOBUS, 23 years; Raymond JACOBUS, > 19 years; Irene JACOBUS, 20 years; George JACOBUS, 16 years; Myrtle JACOBUS, > 13 years and Hazel JACOBUS, 10 years. These six children are all single; all > born in NJ. Raymond is an apprentice in a machine shop. Irene is clerk in the > Thread Mill and 16 years old George, is an order boy in a > grocery. > > Can anyone help me with the other children--three more should be > living--probably older than Bertha? Can anyone connect with this family? This is the > first census that I have been able to find Serlena/Selena. I cannot find her in > the 1900 census; nor the 1920. I cannot find the given name of her husband. > > I will appreciate any and all help. Thank you. > > Mona, Richmond, IN > > > ==== NJESSEX Mailing List ==== > Contact the List administrator: > <[email protected]> > > ============================== > You can manage your RootsWeb-Review subscription from > http://newsletters.rootsweb.com/ >