USING THE NEIGHBORS TO FIND ANCESTORS

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ANCESTRY QUICK TIP
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I have been trying to locate my great-granduncles William and Samuel Sleesman in the index for the 1920 and 1930 census without any success.
The last year I found them was in the 1910 census. At that time, they resided in the 18th Ward in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, living at 1241 and 1239 E. Fletcher Street.
I knew from William's death certificate that he resided at 1241 E. Fletcher Street at the time of his death in 1948.

Using the information from the 1910 census, I decided to see if any of the Sleesman neighbors may still be living on E. Fletcher Street in 1920.
I wrote down names and ages of several neighbors, estimating their birth year. Next, I searched these names in the 1920 index for Philadelphia, looking for possible matches.
One of the names I found in 1910 was Charles R. Taylor, age 50, who lived at 1245 E. Fletcher Street, Philadelphia.

When I searched for him in the 1920 census, I found three possible entries. Using the estimated birth year, I chose the entry with a birth year closest to the year I had estimated.
After that it was simply a matter of viewing the original census image. I found Charles R. Taylor and his family. They were still living at 1245 E. Fletcher St., and the Sleesman families were only a few dwellings away.

To find my Sleesmans in the 1930 census, I repeated the process. I searched the names of neighbors from the 1920 census. One of the names I found in the 1920 census was John Fox, age 57, born about 1862.
I searched for him in the 1930 census in Philadelphia. I found the Fox family living at 1233 E. Fletcher St. William Sleesman was shown living at 1241 E. Fletcher St., and his brother Samuel Sleesman was at 1239 E. Fletcher Street.

Esther Levito

EDITOR'S NOTE:
Search U.S. Federal Censuses online at Ancestry.com

the "Ancestry Daily News" was the source

This is one of the ways that makes the ancestry annual subscription method much more useful and better than the pay per view of some other sites.

Browsing is an essential part of researching.