www.1920census.net

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This week’s column focuses on my searches in the 1920 Ancestry.com census indexes for some of my relatives. My wife and I have thirty- five ancestors who were alive in 1920-this article discusses just some of them. Some of the techniques I used to locate these ancestors may be just the ticket to finding your ancestors in this and in other indexes.
Mimka and Tjode Habben?Found in 1920 index as: Habben, Minke?What it looks like to Michael: Habben, Minke?Found in: Prairie Township, Hancock County, Illinois

I am extremely blessed with some unusual ancestral names. The problem is that unusual names can occasionally be difficult to find. When I entered my great-grandfather’s full name in the search box, I got no results. Searching for only his surname in Illinois (where he was known to reside) resulted in a manageable number of hits. His name on the original census certainly did look like Minke instead of Mimka.
It is always worthwhile to view the entire census page and not just focus on the desired entry. Two of Mimka’s brothers and their families are listed on the same census page as Mimka.

Ancestry.com searches from both the advanced search page and directly from the individual census years in the Images Online project allow for Soundex searches. These searches will provide hits for all of the surnames that share the same Soundex code as the name entered, allowing users to locate some misspellings.

Would the Soundex option have worked here? Not if both the first and last name were entered in the search boxes. This is because the first name was not spelled in the census record the way I was searching for it. In the Ancestry.com 1920 census index, the Soundex option only applies to the surname. Had the first name been omitted from the search parameters, the Soundex option would have located this entry.
Fred and Tena Ufkes?Found in the 1920 index as: Ufkus, Fred?What it looks like to Michael on the census: Ufkes, Fred Found in: Bear Creek Township, Hancock County, Illinois

An important note about the way the surname looks: One tends to see what one is trying to locate — especially when one is viewing the original records. Anyone reading the 1920 census for Bear Creek Township in Hancock County, Illinois, will notice many German names. I can usually read these names “correctly.” Not because I’m smarter than anyone else, but because I grew up hearing these surnames over and over and am also related to many of the families. The creator of the index likely did not have that unique experience. I’m certain there are other counties and areas where I would have difficulty reading the names because the handwriting was not all that great and I was not familiar with the surnames of local families.

I originally searched solely for individuals with the surname “Ufkes” in Illinois, with the intent of locating all of Fred’s siblings and his father. Fred was not listed. Checking the Soundex option brought the desired entry.

For this reason, it is also important not to give up if an entry doesn’t show up in an index. Soundex searches won’t pick up some misspellings. By browsing through the entries yourself you may be able to interpret your ancestor’s name better than the indexer.

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By the time this article appears in the Ancestry Daily News, the 1930 census will have been released to the public. Thousands of genealogists will have located various family members on the recently released microfilm and Ancestry.com will already have posted images from the census on their Web site. For many, the location of an ancestor in the 1930 census will not be easy; most states do not have a Soundex. Even when indexes do exist, there will be occasional irregularities arising from phonetic difficulties, handwriting issues, and human error. Those who cannot find their ancestor in an index will still need to manually view the census for the desired location. Failure to locate a relative in the index does not mean the person is not listed in the census.

This week, I’ll discuss my attempts to locate some of my children’s ancestors in the 1920 census. Even though it has been released for ten years, I still have a few families that I cannot find.

I will be honest. I had it easy with my own ancestors. They were all farmers in rural Illinois, most living on farms still owned by family members today. Finding three of my grandparents in the census was accomplished by simply viewing the census microfilm for the township where the family farm is currently located.

Locating one grandmother was somewhat more difficult, but not a significant problem. My paternal grandmother’s family moved between several tenant farms in a four-township area that was split between two counties. While the family moved several times during my grandmother’s youth, the moves were concentrated in a ten-mile radius and locating them in 1920 was relatively simple. Locating my wife’s grandparents was not as easy.

My Wife’s Grandmothers?My wife’s grandmothers were both living in cities, one in Rock Island, Illinois, and one likely in Chicago. When I located my wife’s grandmother in the 1920 Rock Island census, I did not have access to the 1920 Illinois Soundex and did not want to view the entire census for the city of Rock Island. I needed the residential address for my wife’s grandmother’s family in 1920. The Rock Island city directory for 1919 was used. The father, Henry Mortier, was quickly located in the directory. Armed with an address, my search of the census was significantly easier. Had I not located the family this way, I would have located a 1920 directory address and tried that as well.

Using a city map, I located the property on a map as close to 1919 as I could obtain in the library. Unfortunately, the map I had was not a map of enumeration districts. The enumeration districts for Rock Island in 1920 followed the boundaries of the city’s wards and the ward was listed as part of the description on the top of each census page. I only had to page through a few enumeration districts before I located the family. Had I had access to maps of the enumeration districts, I could have used those to locate the family more easily. Note: Mapquest can be used to find the residential address when city maps are not available. However, one should determine if there have been street re-numberings between the time of the census and today (as Mapquest and other sites have modern maps).

Locating the other grandmother has been significantly more difficult. In fact, she still has not been located.

The grandmother, Anna, would have been approximately eight years old at the time of the census. No birth record for Anna has been found and her age in 1920 is not precisely known (census takers do make mistakes even when ages are known). Her mother and stepfather have been located in the Chicago area in 1920. Anna’s three siblings are living with their mother and stepfather, but Anna is not.

Anna’s likely natural father, William Apgar, has also not been located in the 1920 census. Family tradition indicates she did not live with him after her parents’ 1921 divorce gave the mother sole custody.

Several searches for Anna were conducted both using the Illinois 1920 Soundex and the Illinois 1920 Census Index at Ancestry.com, using a variety of names variations. Searches were conducted using all three possible surnames of Anna:
Apgar-for her natural father
Verikios—for her stepfather
Demare/Desmarais—for her mother’s maiden name

All Apgar families listed in Chicago in 1920 were viewed in hopes of locating an Anna of the right age living in the household. All Verikios and Demar households in Chicago in 1920 were searched in a similar attempt. No reasonably close entries were located. The household of Louis Demar in Chicago, likely Anna’s maternal grandfather, does not contain a child that could be Anna either. Family members told me, before I ever began searching the 1920 census, that for a time Anna stayed with a “neighbor family” when she was a young child. If this took place at the time of the 1920 census, she could easily have been listed with this family using their surname. If this is the case, I likely will not find her in the 1920 census unless I can somehow ascertain the name of the family with which she was living.

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The family is in bed, and I am alone in the dark in front of a flickering screen, with a cat perched on the back of my chair. On the screen is the image of my grandfather’s entry in the 1920 U.S. Federal Census. I am transported back to 1920s Brooklyn. My grandfather is living at home with his father, a jeweler, and his sister who teaches public school. His mother has been dead for nine years. At this time, my grandfather is a young man, 19 years old, and attending Fordham University, working toward his law degree. I picture life around the dinner table in this household. What was typically on the menu? His future wife lives a few blocks away. I wonder, “Has he met her yet?” . . . The cat walks across my keyboard . . . asdlfj[p8h;uafdcjcpodbnpdasjca;adgjfs[pi.

Darn cat! She messed up my imagery! (She really needs to work on her office manners.)
Oh well, now that the mood is broken, you’re probably wondering where this is going. Don’t worry, I’m not going to regale you with long, drawn out stories of my grandparents, but rather share some tips I picked up on browsing and using Ancestry.com’s Images Online service. But first a little background.

History of the 1920 Census?The 1920 U.S. Federal Census is a great starting point for family historians because it is the most recent census available and it contains a lot of valuable information, including each person’s: name; address; age; relationship to the head of household; sex; color or race; marital status; status as either home owner or renter; year of immigration; whether naturalized and the year naturalization; schooling; literacy; place of birth; native tongue; father and mother’s places of birth and native tongues; indication of whether he or she spoke English; trade or profession; type of business; and status as either an employer, employee, or someone working on account. The number of families living in a dwelling and farm schedule numbers appear as well. And in this census, due to boundary changes following WWI, enumerators were instructed to spell out the name of the city, state, province, or region for those who declared that they or their parents were from Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, or Turkey.

You can read more about the 1920 Census in the Ancestry.com Library. (This segment includes many significant facts that can help you in evaluating your findings.)
How Do I Find My Ancestors in the 1920 Census?
?The 1920 Census has a Soundex index, and most people logically start there. The Soundex index (which is also available for 1880, 1900, and 1910) codes surnames by the way they sound rather than how they are spelled. [For those not familiar with Soundex, there are several links at the bottom of this article that take you to detailed articles on using Soundex.] The Soundex index is available on microfilm at the National Archives and its regional branches, as well as in major libraries with large genealogical collections, in the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City, and at Family History Centers.
Created manually in the 1930s as part of the WPA, the Soundex indexes, unfortunately, contain numerous mistakes and omissions and are further complicated by flaws inherent in the coding system (see Michael Neill’s article “Soundex II” for more on this—link follows the article). It is, however, better than no index at all. If you find your ancestor in the Soundex, it will give you the enumeration district, sheet number, and line number, allowing you to zero in on the entry.

There are also ways around using Soundex. The Images Online listings are by Enumeration District (E.D.). By knowing your ancestor’s address or, in rural areas, the name of the community or township, you may be able to find the correct enumeration district using the descriptions provided with each link. (Prisons, infirmaries, orphanages, hospitals, and other institutions are also often included in these descriptions. In fact, in my search, I was tempted to check out a nearby prison to see if we had any black sheep!)

Your ancestors’ addresses can be found in directories, on vital records, in correspondence, and in many other sources. We found my grandfather’s address inside the cover of his copy of “Julius Caesar.” My grandmother’s address came from letters written home by her brother during WWI.

In cases like mine where you are searching in heavily populated urban areas, it is a good idea to consult a detailed map. Many cities have maps available that show enumeration boundaries, and a visit with a local library or Family History Center could turn up one of these and save you some time.

When I looked for my grandmother’s family in the 1920 Census, my mother had given me the E.D. and sheet number, but she had had a hard time reading the number and subsequently gave me the wrong district. When I didn’t find the listing, I went to MapQuest and pulled up the address I had. Thankfully, the street name and number hadn’t changed over the years (which is something to always keep in mind). Using the map I printed off, I plotted E.D. descriptions that accompany each district link in the Images Online database and was able to see that she was in E.D. #1355 rather than #1353.
I am also going to use this technique to plot the surrounding districts and scan them as I get time, because I know there were other family members in the same area and I hope to find some in this manner.

Ancestry.com is working on indexes that will eventually make searching these images much easier, but in the meantime, for those of us who just can’t wait to dig into these treasures, there are ways to find what we need!

The 1920 census was begun on 1 January 1920. The enumeration was to be completed within thirty days, or two weeks for communities with populations of more than 2,500.

Questions Asked in the 1920 Census?Name of street, avenue road, etc.; house number or farm; number of dwelling in order of visitation; number of family in order of visitation; name of each person whose place of abode was with the family; relationship of person enumerated to the head of the family; whether home owned or rented; if owned, whether free or mortgaged; sex; color or race; age at last birthday; whether single, married, widowed, or divorced; year of immigration to United States; whether naturalized or alien; if naturalized, year of naturalization; whether attended school any time since 1 September 1919; whether able to read; whether able to write; person’s place of birth; mother tongue; father’s place of birth; father’s mother tongue; mother’s place of birth; mother’s mother tongue; whether able to speak English; trade, profession, or particular kind of work done; industry, business, or establishment in which at work; whether employer, salary or wage worker, or working on own account; number of farm schedule.

Other Significant Facts about the 1920 Census?The date of the enumeration appears on the heading of each page of the census schedule. All responses were to reflect the individual’s status as of 1 January 1920, even if the status had changed between 1 January and the day of enumeration. Children born between 1 January and the day of enumeration were not to be listed, while individuals alive on 1 January but deceased when the enumerator arrived were to be counted.
Unlike the 1910 census, the 1920 census did not have questions regarding unemployment, Union or Confederate military service, number of children, or duration of marriage. It did, however, include four new question columns: one asked the year of naturalization and three inquired about mother tongue. The 1920 census also asked the year of arrival and status of every foreign-born person and inquired about the year of naturalization for those individuals who had become U.S. citizens. In 1920 the census included, for the first time, Guam, American Samoa, and the Panama Canal Zone.

This database is an every name index to individuals enumerated in the 1920 United States Federal Census, the Fourteenth Census of the United States. In addition, the names of those listed on the population schedule are linked to actual images of the 1920 Federal Census, copied from the National Archives and Records Administration microfilm, T625, 2,076 rolls. (If you do not initially find the name on the page that you are linked to, try a few pages forward or backward, as sometimes different pages had the same page number.)

This new index (released 2005) maintains the old head of household index and adds to it a new every name index (including a re-keying of the heads of households). As a result, for many heads of households you will see two names - a primary, and an alternate. The primary name is the newly keyed name. The alternate name is the name as it appeared in the original head of household only index. Alternate names are only displayed when there is a difference in the way the name was keyed between the two indexes. By making both names available to researchers, the likelihood of your being able to find your head of household ancestor has increased. Likewise, researchers who were once able to find their head of household ancestor under a particular spelling will still be able to easily find that ancestor.

What Areas are Included:
The 1920 census includes all fifty U.S. states and territories, as well as Military and Naval Forces, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and for the first time American Samoa, Guam, and the Panama Canal Zone.

Why Census Records are Important:
Few, if any, records reveal as many details about individuals and families as do the U.S. federal censuses. The population schedules are successive “snapshots” of Americans that depict where and how they were living at particular periods in the past. Because of this, the census is often the best starting point for genealogical research after home sources have been exhausted.