Oh, the Possibilities

Online indexes to census records open wealth of new ways to find elusive ancestors and get around transcription errors. When name searches came up empty, here’s how I used Ancestry.com’s Search options to track my great-grandfather Oscar Lundeen in the 1900 census:

1. I entered two facts about Oscar in Ancestry.com’s 1900 census search form: Her lived in Rock Island Country, ill, and was born in Sweden in 1852.

2. My search resulted in 119 hits. To narrow the field, I added another criterion, looking for those who immigrated in 1875.

3. That move shrank the list two possibilities – one of them was indeed my great-grandfather, misspelled Oscar Lundell.