Advice on research?

Question

I'm stuck with a research point and I'm at the point of not knowing what if anything is my next move. The state of Oklahoma has no death record for this person, the funeral record is only his name and death and cause and location of burial, cemetery records is pretty much the same as the funeral record, no obit was published, all children of this person are dead with only one living long enough to produce heirs who have no clue who his parents are, no will was published he died a pauper for the most part.

My question is at what point should I give up on this man and live with the fact I will never locate his parents or am I missing something or another resource I should be focusing my attention towards.

Answer 1

If the person was alive in 1930 or before, try finding him in the census records.  If you know the OK. County he lived in, that will make it much easier.  Work back through the years in the census records, and if you are lucky you should find him with his parents.  The National Archives holds census records, but you can also get a free subscription to Heritage Quest at you local library.  Heritage quest is in the process of loading the 1930 census, but some are not yet posted.  Genweb census projects also transcribe census records.  These might be a helpful links.

http://www.us-census.org/states/oklahoma...

http://www.usgwarchives.org/ok/okfiles.h...

Good luck.

Answer 2

Hi Mitchell,

If you're like me, you're wondering about this ancestor night and day, trying to think of more ways to "find" him.  A genealogical puzzle like this can drive me to lose sleep sometimes!

I've found that I keep a mental list of people I'm on the lookout for, but I try to "back-burner" them after a while, and focus more on other ancestors...  I might notice later that Ancestry has added a database that could be relevant to finding that person, or some new idea might pop into my head on how to find him, and I'll pick up the trail and see if anything new has been made available online, or ask the county recorder if he or she might have a tax or property record for the first husband of the man's wife...

It doesn't make you a bad genealogist.  Just a reasonable one.

If you'd like to post any details on the elusive ancestor, several of us will try to help...

Hope that helps!

Answer 3

You sure have been quiet for a while, Mitchell.  

You know there are always brick walls (no research without them).  I know that OK has told me that they could not find a record (which I later found), so that is always possible. Depends on when/ where he died.

Also, it might take picking the census apart with a fine tooth comb. As in.. he isn't indexed or the index has it so bad, you would not recognize him.  He might be living as a child with a relative, and the enumerator was not told that he had a different last name from the family.  There may be a long lost 4 lines in the local newspaper about him, but the paper isn't even on microfilm, much less online.  It might drop out of the sky for you, 5 yrs down the road.  Someone here did that to me, a few months ago, and broke my longest brick wall.

Lots of things out there, that don't fit the standard routines.

As I often suggest.. can you post him here, and let some fresh eyes attack it?? sometimes, that is ALL it takes.