Today I am working on my Menzies family line. It’s still been a struggle to get back in the swing of what I was doing. Mostly I’m struggling to keep focused for long periods of time. To combat this, I’ve been doing short bursts to try and work up to longer work sessions. This means sometimes I work on one small family one day, and someone completely on the other side of the tree the next.
This screenshot is from my “clean” file where the only things that live in it are things attached to a source.
James Menzies and Anna Parks family
Today I am trying to fill out the census records for this family. I have a few here and there but I’ve never fully researched them. The Municipal Archives in NYC has a invaluable resource for records in Manhattan, so now is a good time to start filling out these branches of my ancestor’s siblings.
Gathering the Information
Right now I have James and his family in the 1860 and 1880 United States Censuses. I wanted to also fill in the New York State Censuses but unfortunately, Manhattan is missing from these. So 1870 is my new target. I have tried basic searches for this, (I know because I made notes of it!). None of the searches worked and I knew I was going to have to change strategies.
If you notice, one of their children was born in 1870, so I checked to see if I had that birth record. I did.
James was born in October of 1870, which is perfect for me. This means the address given as residence on this record is probably where they were living in June when the 1870 census was taken.
Side Note: This record also says James is the 6th child of his parents, and I only have 5. This means I need to look further for another child. Maybe the 1870 census will help!
Working with Maps
Now the problem comes of where to search for them? Manhattan is a very big place. I know I want to look for 320 Tenth Avenue, but where was that? What district was that in 1870?
A quick Google map search shows me the general area where the address would have been. How do I then translate that to 1870 districts?
Thanks to Wikimedia, we have a November 1870 Hardy Map of Manhattan.
Breaking Down the Hardy 1870 Manhattan Map
This map says a lot. The red outline and number indicates the Ward. The blue outline and number gives us the Assembly District. The last breakdown on this particular map is Election Districts. When you are looking at a state or federal census, they will be using one of these designations to distinguish each area they are counting. So going off our Google Map, if I’m honest, the election district is not exactly clear. I don’t know where exactly my address will land. I’m going to say either the 6th or 7th district. Mainly because of the side of the street that even numbered addresses are on in all the NYC maps I’ve looked at.
Ward: 20
Assembly District: 15
Election District: 6 or 7
Does this narrow things down for me to one exact place? No. Does it eliminate thousands of pages of census? Yes. This is what we call a win. No it wasn’t tied up in a quick indexed search. However, we are talking about Scottish and Irish immigrants, maybe they had thick accents or no accent. Maybe the census taker had horrible handwriting and the name was not legible. There are just as many scenarios there as districts in New York City. 😂
We could keep trying to find it in the index, or we can take a Saturday afternoon and check Election District 6 and 7 and see what we find. Can’t hurt to try!
The Search is On
In order to not have 1,000,000 images in this post, I’m just going to document what I find as I start browsing.
- Opened to first page of Ward 20, 6th Election District on FamilySearch. Location description on the side of the page says 10th Avenue between 26 and 27th street.
- 8 pages in, 10th Avenue between 27 and 28th street. I find a James Parks family, from Ireland.
- 11 pages in, 10th Avenue between 28 and 29th street. I start noticing that maybe the dwelling number is the street address? There was not a second family number indicated for each family. Just a bunch of families, under the same dwelling number.
12 pages into my targeted search. James Menzies family, written as Menses. We have James, his wife Anna, the three living children. James will be born in just a few months. Not bad for a Saturday afternoon I would say. Indexes are nice, I use them a lot but I have to say the payoff of this targeted search feels so much more satisfying.
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