From Randy (a cousin discovery!!) over at Genea-Musings:
it's Saturday Night -
time for more Genealogy Fun!!!
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:
(1) How many people had your four grandparents' exact last names at birth in the 1940 U.S. Census?
(2) List each last name at birth and the number of persons having that last name in the 1940 U.S. Census using an exact surname match. I used Ancestry.com for this since I have a paid membership. However, I could have used FamilySearch instead, if I had chosen to do so, as it is free.
(3) Have you performed a "one name search" for any of those last names and added them to your family tree?
(4) Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a post on Facebook.
Here's mine:
Two of my grandparents had the same last name at birth, so I only had three names to search. The number of people with their exact last names in the 1940 U.S. Census are:
* Tapley = 1,823
* Drake = 36,622
* Ranney = 1,901
I got these numbers from Ancestry.com by going to "Search," and then choosing the database "1940 United States Federal Census." (I was lucky that it is a featured database so it was right there on the main search page!) In the Search box, I checked "Match all terms exactly," and entered the surname I was searching for under "Last Name." Then I scrolled down to the bottom and clicked "Search." It was that easy!
I am not entirely confident is the accuracy of the numbers, especially for the Drakes. I saw several names on the list that were NOT Drake. Perhaps they are misspellings that were corrected by users; I don't know. I did find that some of them were in a household with someone who had the name I was searching for. So now I'm more like 90% confident.
I have never done a "one name search" for any of my surnames. I actually had never thought about doing that. So this was a great exercise that gave me another avenue to research... since I don't have enough already! ;)
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