What's In a Name?

In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet proclaims ""What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." While that might be true, names can complicate research when you're trying to track down family members in various official sources. I've come to find out that the names we know people by are not necessarily the names we're going to find them under.

Take my great-grandparents on my mother's side, for instance. John Jay and Jennie Maude are, evidently, the names they were given at birth. However, in records they are inevitably found as Jay and Maude. (In an aside, I spent years trying to figure out why someone named Jennie would go by Maude if given a choice. I'm now willing to bet it's because her mother was named Jennie and it was to avoid confusion.) My own grandfather, John Raymond, never went by anything other than Raymond. This name confusion can make people difficult to track down.

The issue becomes even more confusing if you find the same person listed in different years under different names. Trying to track down the above mentioned John Jay's brother, I have no idea if his name was actually Lewis Frederick or Frederick Lewis. I've found him as Lewis F, Fred L, and Frederick L. Once the person gets married or moves out of the family home, I've yet to determine how you're supposed to be certain you've found the right one.

So while a rose might smell as sweet no matter what you call it, if you're looking for Romeo in your family tree, it helps to know that he's a Montague. And that his parents sometimes called him Fred.

Women

Right now, I am continually frustrated by the women in my family. It just feels like I keep hitting dead end after dead end where they are concerned. I think I need to do more research on how to do this type of research. At least I know enough to know what I don't know. And I'm sure there must be tricks to tracking down women.

In other news, April 2 grows ever closer. Whoever would have thought that I'd be so excited about the release of a new set of census data? Whoever would have thought that I'd even be aware of such? This is the first set of census data that I know I should find my parents in. I can't quite figure out why I find this so exciting. I mean, it's not like I don't know my parents or where they were. Maybe it's just the official documentation. I don't know. All I know is that I can't wait to get my hands on this new set of data!

Why do I Find This Exciting?

My great-grandmother continues to elude me in 1925. As do her children. I'm finding it very vexing because I can't figure out why I can't find her. My best guess is that the census transcription for the page that they're on in the 1925 Iowa census is typically mangled almost beyond recognition. What does it say about me that I refuse to give up? I mean, I *know* they're there. There is nowhere else that they would be.

So my current approach is to go through the census pages, starting with the counties and townships I know that they lived in either before or after, on the page that lists the person's father's name and where he was born, and looking for my great-grandfather. I find that I am actually quite enjoying this and it's enabled me to trace some of my great-grandmother's siblings.

So, yes, my family tree includes all kinds of documentation for offshoots and people who are not related to me whatsoever except by marriage. But sometimes I find out interesting information that way. And I like it. Maybe it's just that it appeals to the innate researcher in me. I don't know. But I love discovering little tidbits and finding one more piece of evidence that this person was *real*. And the fact that my great-grandmother's family is on the same census page as my great-grandfather's family, as are my great-grandparents themselves (who were newly married), in 1905? That, my friends? Is priceless.

The Things You Don't Know Can Trip You Up

I have spent the past week scrolling through census pages, trying - unsuccessfully - to find my great-grandmother. Because once my great-grandfather died, in 1923, I couldn't find anything until she died. It was driving me nuts. I *knew* she had to be there. I mean, where would she have gone?

Today, I found the answer. It turns out that she got married again. Mind you, she went back to Palmer, evidently, after her second husband died because that is the name on the Social Security Death Index and the name on her tombstone. So you can forgive me for being confused and thinking that I had not found the right Lena.

To further complicate matters, her daughter, my Auntie Helen, married her second husband's oldest son. So I was confused when I saw my great-aunt, under her married name, but listed as stepdaughter to the head of the house. Again, I thought it was just a coincidence. But when you combine the "coincidence" of the wife of the head being Lena P and there also being stepchildren with the names of my great-aunt and two great-uncles (my grandfather had gotten married two years earlier), the lightbulb finally went on over my head and I realized that I had, in fact, found those missing Palmers. And that the reason I couldn't find them previously was because they were on the 1930 census as Williamsons.

I have likewise been unable to find them in the 1925 Iowa census. So now I will go back and look for them under Williamson and see if, perhaps, they are there after all.

Is it a Root or a Branch?

Have you ever noticed that when you look at a picture of a family tree, the main person (you) tends to be the center, or trunk, of the tree and then various family members branch off from them.  So while we (that's the generic we, not the Royal We) tend to talk about our family's roots, family is not usually depicted that way visually.  So does it really matter if we talk about branches or roots?

Technically, I guess, our roots would be our ancestors - those who contributed a little bit of this and a little bit of that into our gene pool, ultimately making us the tree person we are today - while our branches would be those who "sprout" from us, such as our children, who will become their own trees people, in turn.  In reality, though, it's much easier to talk about this branch of the family tree or that branch, rather than this root or that root.  So there you have it.  I'm searching for branches.