This little tip has stood me well in finding “missing” male head-of-household ancestors in the 1850-1880 US census, and might help you, too! (Note that I’ll be saying “him” a lot in this post because in this case we’re usually seeking a fellow.) (Its better than shouting “Show yourself!” at your computer screen when your

One of the great southern authors, Dorothy Allison, once said that we Southerners like to tell “evil mean stories.”  For example, when I was very small, and my sister even smaller, a family member told us a tale out of our family tree. As the story went, our ancient ol’ many times great-grandpa (let’s call