Last month while serving my shift, I invited a friend to join me at the Family History Center. Her tree has many blanks in it giving us opportunities to find more family members and add them to FamilySearch Family Tree. Unfortunately, the previous generations of her family were very poor and there are not many records. Many relatives could not read or write so proper birth, marriage or death records were not often created and very few were able to afford a proper burial when a family member passed away. To say the least, searching for her ancestors in records is a challenge.

We worked our way to her paternal great-grandfather’s generation. In her tree on FamilySearch, we had only the great-grandfather’s first and last name, his wife’s first name with no maiden name and their daughter’s name and her birth year. No other birth dates, places or family members were entered. My friend has very little contact with her paternal side. Trying to find more information about her paternal grandmother’s family seemed difficult.

We tried the usual links of research provided on the person’s page with no results. Then we tried a very broad search using what few clues we had. We opened the FamilySearch “Search” menu. We typed in his first and last name, only the first name of his wife, and tried to deduce an “about” birth year. Since the families were poor, we guessed that they didn’t move around much so we entered the location of where she knew the family last resided. With hope and a prayer, we tapped the search button!  

Like many of you, we had the pure joy of seeing the search yield the hoped-for result! A 1920 U.S. census appeared with the missing information we desired. There was great-grandpa’s full name, great-grandma’s maiden name with dates and places and many more children that were not known to her. This family was confirmed by the paternal grandmother’s name appearing on the census and the only known aunt! The crowning moment of this experience was to also find the great-great-grandparents who were then living with their son!

After entering the entire family in FamilySearch including the additional generation, we had a very happy moment of gratitude and celebration. My friend and I have another appointment to meet again and we can’t wait to see what other ancestors are waiting to be found!

-Janet Helland, Patron Services, Granite Family History Center