GeneaBabble

Randy Seaver recently posted about finding townships and EDs on Ancestry census images and it reminded me of something I’ve found very useful.

When you are viewing a census image at Ancestry you will see something like this near the top of the page:

You are here: Search > Census > U.S. Census > 1930 United States Federal Census > Ohio > Mahoning > Youngstown > District 82

Click on “Youngstown” and it will show you a list of districts AND what streets they’re bounded by. I used this when I knew that someone lived on the South side of Youngstown (Gibson St.), but the census takers always garbled his name and I couldn’t find him by doing a regular search. Since I know Youngstown well I was able to figure out what district he was in. You can then flip through page by page and after your eyes dry out and your temper is about to erupt… you might just find what you’re looking for. If you’re lucky, the nice census taker has written the street names on the side of the sheets.

Now that I think about it, there’s probably an easier way to do this. I tend to come up with some obscure way to do what is completely obvious to everyone else.