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unforth ([personal profile] unforth) wrote2009-04-07 08:01 am
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Ancestry

Well, a couple days ago I had messed around with the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System and been unable to find Mr. John Milton Houck of the 29th Iowa (after having confirmed with my dad that I did in fact have his name, state and regiment correct). This morning, for no particular reason, I decided to try again, this time by going through the muster for the 29th Iowa. And within a few pages it became clear what must have happened: in a time when many men were illiterate, spellings for last names weren't very definite, and further this information was transferred from handwritten originals (no other kind for that time!) with the result that there were names that clearly were one person listed as many as four or five times, all spelled a little different. Holding out hope that it was all a typo, I kept looking, and sure enough...
John M. Houch; 29th Iowa Infantry; Union; Company F; Mustered in private, mustered out private; File number M541 roll 13.
I'm rather gratified by this discover. On the other hand, paging through the records ate up the time when I would have labeled photographs. I win...and I lose...
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[identity profile] guiniveve.livejournal.com 2009-04-18 06:12 pm (UTC)(link)
That can be really frustrating when you get doing research with these databases. I can't tell you the number of times we have been able to find stuff in the local historical society transcribed census records that we coudln't find on Ancestry. The reason-Ancestry misread the name and spelled it incorrected so it wouldn't come up on a search.

[identity profile] unforth.livejournal.com 2009-04-20 11:41 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah - having looked at some of these old records, I kind of understand - I mean, the cursive they used can be VERY hard to read - a guy I was talking to yesterday told me that he tried to find an ancestor of his named Nancy, and the database had spelled it Honey, and when he looked at the original document, he agreed with their spelling (though he KNEW for other reasons that it said Nancy...)
What a pain! I'm glad I'm not doing that much of this genealogy stuff - that's dad's department...
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