Hide & Seek

I remember on summer nights, growing up in south florida, playing outside with all the cousins.

We lived in a small community in South Florida. All the cousins, aunts & Uncles lived within a few miles of us. Most of the aunts & uncles still live in those same houses today. A few of the cousins have moved on, some of town, some out of state. But once my family came to that small community, they bought homes and they never moved.

Living so close together made it easy for us to get together for a game of baseball, a beach outing or a friday night card game. One of our favorite games was hide & seek. Playing outside there were so many places to hide. One cousin he just never seemed to get the idea that if you stayed in the same place all the time, eventually people would figure out you were clueless and would be found first all the time.

Sometimes our ancestors do the same sort of stuff. And so it was with John & Anna Dute' Krugman. John Krugman and his parents & siblings came into New York harbor on Oct. 31, 1872. They maybe took a day or two, but eventually they put themselves & the children on a train and headed over to Ohio. He met & married Anna Dute', they eventually started a family and bought a house at 349 - 10th St., Elyria, Ohio.

I'm sure your asking by now why the heck it matters? It really does matter and you really do need to pay attention - two things - one is city directories and the other is the margin of the census. Both have to do with the addresses of the persons who appear.

In the 1910 census for the Krugman's in Elyria, John & Anna were no where to be found. I knew from things I had seen that John had no interest in going back "across the pond". I had gone line by line twice searching Elyria for them. Just on a whim I decided to check and see if I had an address for them. I checked the last census and sure enough in the source I had recorded the address of the home where John & Anna lived. I did a cross check against my city directories (recorded as facts on in my Legacy software) and both addresses matched and pointed to 349 - 10th Street, Elyria. The source information had come from the address given along the edge of the census page.

Armed with the census source and my city directories, I started my search thru the 1910 census for John & Anna. After a few pages I found them. Not enumerated as John & Anna Krugman but as John & Ann Kauffman. Everything else matched perfectly!

So next time your ancestors are playing hide & seek with you, take the time and check the address, they may be hiding in the same place they were before, just under an "assumed" name....

Happy Researching...
Karen