The continuing release of additional indexes and finding aids opens up new worlds to family historians and relieved us of the burden of hours of page-by-page searching. I have found records in minutes that would have been virtually impossible to find otherwise.

However, the location of my great-grandfather’s 1893 death certificate reminded me that not every record will be easily located in an index. This week we look briefly at that certificate and discuss when a manual search is necessary and what needs to be known before that search can begin.

1893 Birth Certificate
I knew the record was for my great-grandfather, but it could have been easily overlooked given the information it actually contained.

• His first name was incorrect (Elineny for Frederick).
• His last name was spelled phonetically (Ufcuss for Ufkes).
• His year of birth could have been read as 1873 instead of 1893.
• His parents’ names were slightly askew. His father’s first name could have been interpreted as Thon instead of Johann, and his mother’s name appears to be Eliney instead of Noentjelena.

If all I had to use to find this record was the entry in the index (solely the name), it could have easily been overlooked.

Methodical researchers searching for a surname such as Ufkes would easily recognize Ufcuss as a variant spelling and view the actual record. However, if the first letter had been read and indexed as something other than a “U” the index reference would have been more difficult, if not impossible, to find. Locating this record required a manual search of the records, which took much longer than using an index.

Page by page searches of records are often necessary because...

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