Hunting History - Finding Family

A census record can either be your brick-wall busting best friend or a migraine inducing annoyance.   I'll be using a clients tree as an example, as I've recently had a very bad census as well as a very good one. Debbie's (my client) third great grandfather is Felix Stacey, born in Kentucky in 1823.  In 1880 we find him in Perry co, Kentucky with his wife and children.  Now I have a marriage license and multiple other census records, so I know for a fact who his family is.  Felix married Cynthia Couch in 1850, and they had nine children: Polly Ann, John, Farmer, Peter, Granville, Nancy, Rachel, Alford, and Lucinda.  On the 1880 census, not all are living and not all live at home, but here's what the census reads: Felix Stacy (suname spelled wrong) wife: Sinthy Stacy (not even close) children: Former, Loucinda, Granville, Rachel, Nancy, and Alford. (Well they got 4 of the 6 right anyway....) If I hadn't known the names of the children from previous ...

So today I was going to talk about census reports....but instead I'm going to talk about Marilyn Monroe! Lovely, tortured soul that she was, Marilyn was my 8th cousin 2x removed.  That means that she's eight and I'm ten steps away from a common ancestor, Robert Rivers (1701-1792.)  But unlike my relationship to the Queen of England, this one isn't through marriage, it's through my own line.  And I rather like Miss Monroe, so I thought I'd share this one. Robert Rivers is my 8th great grandfather on my Weller (mom's) side.  I actually hadn't gotten that far, so it was news to me and now I have lots of new ancestors to work through on that line.  This info all came through an app called We're Related, and I'll get back to that in a minute. Robert Rivers (1701-1792) My 9th great grandfather John Rivers (1736-1774) - Robert's son, my 8th great grandfather John Rivers (1757-1820) - John's son, my 7th great grandfather Susannah Rivers (...

I have been searching for a client's grandmother FOREVER.  OK maybe that's not entirely true, but she's been a big focus of our search since we started.  Debbie (client) was told grandma's name was Valentine Poole and she came from England. That's all we knew. Now this family doesn't share secrets.  No one talks.  It's all a big ol mystery.  I love those. I knew "Valentine" was married to Debbie's grandfather, David George, and I knew he had a son, Edward David George.  We knew David had died around 1980 and was buried in Florida.  Let the search begin. I searchedandsearchedandsearched..... I found a record hit that was a maybe.  You'd be surprised how many David Bryants there are.  One married a Dorothy Valentine, and I wasn't even positive enough to save the record onto his file, but I kept it in memory, just in case. I searched ancestry many times for Valentine Poole, David Bryant, Edward David....all nothing.  I hit family...