I had a conversation recently with a new genealogy friend about the value of reviewing family history research that we’ve done in the past.
We talked about how we may have missed clues years ago that would be obvious to us now that we know more about our families – and more about genealogy research techniques and records.
We also talked about the availability of new tools, especially those via the Internet such as databases, indexes, and digital images.
With that in mind, I decided to try to find the birth record of my great-grandmother’s sister.
I knew from the 1900 U.S. census that Emma STEFFENSON had been born in Michigan in September 1883. The family was living in Mason County, Michigan, in 1900 and had arrived in the area sometime in the 1880s. So, my assumption was that Emma had been born in Mason County.
However, in a previous search of Mason County birth records I had not found Emma’s birth record. Nor had I found her listed in the microfilmed index for Michigan births, 1867-1915. For years I thought Emma had probably been born outside of Michigan – like several of her siblings — or that her birth had not been recorded in Michigan.
I decided to search for Emma STEFFENSON’s birth on FamilySearch’s Record Search, a pilot project of FamilySearch Labs.
I ran a search for “birth/christening” records in “Mason, Michigan, United States” for the first name “Emma.” I left the last name blank.
I had decided to start with Mason County since that was the most likely birth place, and I left the last name blank because my STEFFENSONs have appeared in records with various spellings of their surname.
That search request gave me 153 results.
Then I narrowed the results further by selecting the “birth date” option and selected “1880-1889.”
That gave me 58 results.
I narrowed the results again by selecting the “last names” option and selected the letter “S.”
So now I had a list of the seven individuals with the first name “Emma” and a last name starting with the letter “S,” born between 1880 and 1889 in Mason County, Michigan.
Of those seven, the most likely result was a birth for “Emma STEVEN” on 22 Sept. 1883 in Ludington, Mason County, Michigan, to parents “Ivan STEVEN and Mary STEVEN.”
Emma’s parents’ first names would have been Swan and Mary. When I checked the digital image, however, Emma’s father’s first name did indeed look like “Swan” to me, rather than “Ivan.” The birth place for Emma’s parents was “Sweden,” which is consistent with other research results for this family.
I’m almost positive that I’ve finally found the birth record for my great-grandmother’s sister.
My success is mostly due to this new research tool, but it’s also because of my increased knowledge about genealogy research techniques in general and this family in particular.
It’s very possible that in previous searches I had overlooked Emma’s birth record because the last name was different that what I had expected to find.
Now if I only can find my great-grandmother’s birth record or birth place …
