Researching Ancestors through secondary records

Researching Ancestors through secondary records

I have found that there are alternatives to hunting down the whereabouts of ancestors who between census records or even Births, Marriages and Deaths records. Some of these might even be to many obvious places to search though with the internet the research can sometimes become easier to track down the people of interest.

One person who I have written about before in the past, Frederick Milverton who was a lawyer in the United States did seem to move around quite a bit and through accident I found online telephone records that traced him between the census records. He had immigrated to the US in 1891, but I found him in 1893 as a Sales man in Salt Lake city. When he was Naturalised in 1898 he had moved to Hawaii whose occupation was Stenographer for the 4^th circuit court. The job of a Stenographer is a law reporter who produces the official court transcripts. By around 1902 he was now an Attorney in Hawaii. Somehow by 1905 he had moved to Oklahoma City with the same occupation. In 1907 William was now an Attorney general back in Hawaii.

I did later come across Frederick’s wife, Helen Milverton nee Johnson after his death and her occupation was a Stenographer. I have not found any record of when they married around 1920, but I think I found how they might have met up.

It is good that these records are around so you can have a fair idea on where people are living along with their occupations. These records could help in the search for more records in local archives and as a way to trace them around the country. Another family member Herbert Milverton mysteriously moved to Australia after WW1 and appeared on a death record in 1968 Adelaide, South Australia. A little bit of research found he was in Victoria Australia in 1925.

It is interesting tracking people down outside of the more popular records especially when you have to pay close attention to the records as the transcribe may spell the names incorrectly leading you to brick walls. You can just about follow where they travel around the country they are living in though there would still be mysteries within many records like naturalisations. One record in New Zealand I was looking at that had eight employees from Germany be naturalised at the same time at a timber mill in 1877. The timbermill was the Aratapu though it will pop up in another record somewhere for my Albert Gabolinscy ancestor. There has to be a reason why a group of migrants at this saw mill had to be naturalised and were all from Germany. It is a mystery for another time and I could have the name of the mill wrong too.

Where to search?

In today’s technological world there are many places you can search for family members through electoral rolls or other records. The most popular would be Ancestry, but never forget you can visit libraries, State and national archives and the family history groups as they may have access to Microfiche which can be very helpful. You can use Google to search for the locations of the centres if you are not familiar and they do have websites. Websites like Trove and Paperspast are helpful if you are located in Australia or New Zealand.