Searching the New York State

Census 1905

Finding a long lost ancestor using State Census Records

1©Larisa Thomas for Roots of Kinship www.rootsofkinship.com

The Challenge

• Finding Xaver Schillinger in the 1905 New York State Census

• Known facts:

– Lived at 234 Jerome Street, Brooklyn

– Married to Catherine

– Possible household members:

• Mary (possibly with her husband Henry Altenburg)

• Catherine or Katie

• Charles

2©Larisa Thomas for Roots of Kinship www.rootsofkinship.com

Start Here

FamilySearch.org – A free genealogical research website, sponsored by the Church of Latter Day Saints

(You do not need to be a member of the church to use the website.)

3©Larisa Thomas for Roots of Kinship www.rootsofkinship.com

Browse to the Collection

• Reduce the Research Clutter– When researching a

specific collection, browse to it first before entering search terms

• Click on Search on the homepage

• Scroll to the “Browse by Location” section and click on “United States”

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Honing in on the Target

Collection

• Click on “New York” in the listing on the right-hand side of the page

• You can narrow it down by additional filters, such as date, but once you are in New York, the list is not long.

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Entering the Collection

• Scroll down the list until you find the Census collections

• Click on the desired year – in this case 1905.

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Searching the Collection

• From here, enter the name of the person you are looking for:

– Xaver Schillinger

• Add in the residence place to narrow down the results to the town or village where your ancestor lived.

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The Results

• 5 Results came up in this case – but none of them are correct

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Now what??

• Try searching by other names in the household

• Try using wildcards, or alternate spellings

• If you get too many results, try narrowing down by the birth year or place

– Add 1 year on either side of your known birth year to account for census inaccuracy

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Hand Searching the Census

• In the case of Xaver Schillinger, those additional options did not produce any matching results

• Now it’s time to browse the images in a hand search of the records– Go back to the main search screen for the collection

and scroll down to “Browse Images”

– Don’t worry – you won’t have to look at all 110,718 images. We can narrow it down first.

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Narrowing Down Your Search

• It’s really important to know where your ancestor lived in 1905 in order to narrow down the search.

• Xaver Schillinger was known to live at 234 Jerome Street between 1900 and 1910 (based on the Federal Censuses for those years)

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Figure out the A.D. and E.D.

• The 1905 Census was organized by Assembly District and Election District in Brooklyn.

• One Step for Finding the A.D. and E.D.: http://stevemorse.org/nyc/nyc.php

• Select the Borough, the Year, and the street name from the dropdown menu

• Results are returned at the bottom – in this case, there are 6 A.D./E.D.s to choose from

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Finding the Right A.D./E.D.

• Click on each A.D./E.D. button to see a complete list of the streets in each district

• Look for the cross-streets near the address in question. For Xaver’shouse, the house was on Jerome between Atlantic and Liberty Avenues

• Found the streets listed in the last District: 21/25

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Search the Census by Hand

• Now that we know which Assembly and Election District his street is in, we can search just that portion of the 1905 census for his name.

• Go back to the listing on FamilySearch.org for the 1905 New York Census.

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Finding the A.D./E.D. in the

Records File

• Click on “Browse through 110,718 images”

– Can be found on the listing page, or at the bottom of the search page within the collection

• Scroll to the County, in this case Kings

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Finding the A.D./E.D. in the

Records File

• Click on the appropriate town: Brooklyn

• Click on the appropriate A.D./E.D.

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Find the Record

• Now the hunt begins, but instead of having to look at over 110,000 images, you only need to go through 34.

A MUCH EASIER TASK!

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The Results

• Xaver Schillinger was found on image 23– His last name was

transcribed as Schellinger, which did not return as one of the “Sounds like” results for Schillinger

– The search for his wife’s name also came up empty, because it’s totally wrong in the census, listed as Carlionia, instead of Catherine

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– He’s listed as part of a larger household, under his son-in-law, Henery Altenberg, which is also spelled differently than the known spelling Henry Altenburg

Conclusion

• It’s possible to narrow down the search to a reasonable chunk of time and effort to find your ancestor in a hand search.

• Know and use as much information about your ancestor as possible, by looking at records from years that bracket the census in question.

• Know what resources you have available to aid you in your search by providing shortcuts, such as the Enumeration District finder.

• Understand what name variations may be impacting your records search and account for them.

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Good luck!