Turning the Unknown into the Known

I wasn't feeling particularly motivated to work on records yesterday evening, so I decided to set off in search of....well....the unknown! I had 3 people in my tree I knew were married into the family, but absolutely no clue at all as to their names. Since using 5 underscores doesn't mess up the algorithms, all 3 were listed as "_____ _____" in my tree. Those underscores peered back at me every time I opened my tree. I wanted....no...I needed to know their names. After quite a bit of searching, I've managed to identify all 3!

For the first, it was the husband of one of my 1st cousins 1x removed, who's living so I won't include names. I know she's married because her aunt (my cousin) filled me in on some family information a couple of years ago. My normal jump to FamilyTreeNow only provided some historical data. No clue as to her husband, married surname or where she may be living now. Ancestry wasn't giving up any secrets either. I know I could have just asked my cousin, but sometimes it feels a little awkward when it's not someone I talk to on any kind of regular basis. Not everyone understands just how much we family genealogists have a burning need to place everyone in our tree! I was hopeful I could find the information on my own. I tried Newspapers with no success. Since newspapers (in general) can be goldmines, I have subscriptions to several other sites. I'll be honest, my hopes weren't high. But as it turns out, I was able to find a marriage record in a newspaper from 2017 on GenealogyBank. While it didn't contain anything more than the names and ages, it was enough! Thanks to an uncommon spelling of her given name, I was confident I had the right couple.1 down, 2 to go!

The second was for the 2nd great-grandfather of my ex-husband, William Berendes (1835-1913). I've long known he had more than one wife. His oldest 2 daughters were born 10+ years before his other children, and the age of his 2nd wife eliminated her as a potential mother of these 2 daughters. Further, his will mentioned 2 deceased wives. Many trees show the first wife as Theresa Rawtermundt. The problem was, I wasn't finding any records for a marriage with this name. In fact, searches were only brining up his 2nd wife. William was born in Germany, but he arrived here in the US in 1852. His daughters were born 1861 and 1863. Based on his age at the time of arrival, it was likely the first marriage took place somewhere in the US. I decided to widen my search a little. Using wildcards in William's name did the trick. Instead of using William Berendes, I used Wil*m Ber*des. Using the * allows the algorithm to look for other potential spellings. I was actually expecting to find him listed as Wilhelm, but I turned up a record for William Berandes (with an a not an e) and a Thureza Rodermond. Now to be fair, the indexes may have been transcribed from records where the names were inadvertently spelled incorrectly. But I'm comfortable this is the right couple, and it's a starting point. I'm on the right trail! 2 down, 1 to go!

The final push was for a cousin, also still living so he shall remain nameless in this post, who was married previously, as per the record of his 2nd marriage. Of course I started with his name and year of birth (not helpful on its own), then narrowed only to marriage/divorce records from the US, and then further narrowed to the state of Ohio. The number of results returned wasn't 5 or 10, but I was in the zone and I went through quite a few pages. Finally, I was able to find both the marriage and divorce (even though they stubbornly wouldn't come up on their own when searching by name only). It was by sheer determination I was able to find the 3rd out of 3!

With these 3 names identified, I have no more "_____ ______" staring at me from my tree. I do still have plenty of first or last names still unidentified, but those will wait for another time. So, no matter how many times you've searched before, you never know when one more search will turn up the record you're looking for. Don't assume using the correct name is going to bring up all the records. Be creative! If you don't already, learn to use wildcards. Ancestry has a very helpful page of Search Tips. I've added this link to my Genealogy Toolbox so it's easy to find if you ever need it. How have you managed to find completely unknown names? Do you have any tricks you can share?

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay