Helping finding Great grandfather in the 1920/30 censuses

[bbango]

Hello all thanks for all of your help so far with finding information on my family - but one thing I can not find is my grandfather and his parents and sister in the 1930 census.

My great grandfather came over to the US in 1911 his name was Dominic Bango. (His italian name was Domenico Bonghi).

I have looked in the 1920 census for him with all types of name variations on ancestry.com, but no luck in finding him. I did however find his brother, but they were not living in the same area anymore in 1920. As far as I know Dominic lived in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania then.

How complete is the 1920 census on Ancestry?

Now the 1930 census, my grandfather and his sister would have been born by now and Dominic would have been married also. But I can not find them anywhere in this census either. Dominic married Clara Sebastiani and their children were Joseph Bango (my grandfather b. 1924) and his sister Lena (b about 1926). They were living in Jefferson Co, PA.

How complete is the 1930 census on Ancestry?

What could have been some of the reasons why I can not find them? I have searched many name variations but still no luck because I know from past experiences on Ancestry and Ellis Island.org that the people who scanned the images sometimes indexed the names with incorrect spellings.

If someone has any time, maybe I can get some help searching for them in the censuses? This is frustrating! Thank you!

[wldspirit]

Have you tried searching for the childrens name, listing states of birth for parents/children to narrow the search results?

wldspirit

[bbango]

Yes, I've searched for Dom*,Joseph, Lena, Cla*, Joe, Joey - Ban*, Bango, Bongo, Bonghi, Bong*, and the childrens birthplace as Pennsylvania

the only thing I can think of is that their names are misspelled or I'm not sure.. They weren't at home when the census guy came by their house? Maybe they moved a lot when my grandfather was young? I'm not sure.

But it's very frustrating not being able to find this information!

[Essgee]

Any chance that this might be him?

http://img484.imageshack.us/img484/3292 ... 920gp0.jpg

Line 1, based upon age and date of arrival.

[wldspirit]

Do you have any other data that can be used to track down a census?
Dom's date of birth? Clara's date of birth? Place?
Is Joseph short for Giuseppe? Could Lena be a nickname from her given name?? Are you sure of the childrens birthplace and dates........
wldspirit

[bbango]

ok,

Dominic's date of birth was Nov 4 1894 - Troia, Italia

Clara's date of birth was March 17 1906 - Brockwayville, PA (later shortened to Brockway in 1925)

My grandfather's full name was Joseph Lewis Bango b Nov 4 1924 - Brockwayville, PA (Brockway)

I will have to double check on birth and full given name of my Aunt Lena, but as far as I know it is Lena.

[wldspirit]

Difficult indeed.......
I have had no luck in locating the family in 1930.....but don't give up yet,
I'm sure another member may be able to locate something!!!!
wldspirit

[bbango]

thanks for trying wldspirit, I appreciate it.


Essgee, I don't believe that is him. Thank you though

[peggymckee]

Hi Bbango!

I have some non-web suggestions which have turned up very good information for me. My idea is to find your great GF's address in 1930 and look him up that way. If you can find the address you might have to search the whole eneration district, but...

1. Did your great-GF ever own a house? (I'm talking about anytime in his life.) If you can find the deed or mortgage, that might give a previous address. From that previous address you might be able to work backwards to the 1930 census.

2. Did you great-GF ever attend school or college? I was able to get my Dad's 1934 application to Northwestern. It has his parents' current address, of course. I also have my dad's elementary school record and will shortly be sending for his HS record (the famous Proviso High School in Maywood).

3. Did he ever at any time in his life register to vote, get a driver's license etc.? The application might say where he moved from. I'm exploring the voter registration option for my Dad. Don't know yet if the records go back far enough.

4. Search on the web for samples of how capital letters were written in the 1920s & 30s. I have a baptismal certificate from 1931 and the capital E's look like S's. I know they are E's because I have the same certificate written in Italic hand in 1927 (very clear almost like printing). Once you know they are E's, you can see it in the 1931 version, but without that knowledge I couldn't.

You Bango relative might be listed as Sango, etc. Also my GF's first name, Nello, is Nils (alternate spelling Nilo) on the 1920 census and Nallo on the 1930 census.

Good luck, Peggy M

[wldspirit]

Hoping this link works, sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't....
But listening to the pronunciation of the surname may give you an idea as to how an American would mis-pronounce the name and butcher the spelling.....

http://vhost.oddcast.com/vhost_minisite ... ample.html

wldspirit

[peggymckee]

Hi B Bango,

I've just reread your initial post on this topic. Reading between the lines, it seems like you are looking only at the index on ancestry.com and not actually looking at the census page.

Is this correct? Peggy M

[bbango]

well yes, that is correct. I do my search, and look from page to page of the results.. Then if something looks like it might fit my search criteria, I open up the census image and look at the actual census.

[wldspirit]

Jefferson county has over 30 townships, can you narrow down the township??

Otherwise there are 52.000+ entries just for Jefferson county!!

Unless you have a street address, the suggestion is to search each county page by page.......a huge undertaking.....but it can be done..
wldspirit

[peggymckee]

B Bango--I thought perhaps you were looking only at the index, but not so.

I asked because I missed Nils Marchi (my GF Nello Marchi) on the text census index on ancestry. But luckily for me, I was at the FHC and a professional genealogist was there too and he found Nello (alias Nils). And he explained how important it is to look at actual census page.

And if you look at the actual page, you'll see that the hand written entry doesn't actually look much like Nils. You seem to be avoiding this pitfall!

May I ask why you want to find them in the 1930 census?

Good luck, Peg

[peggymckee]

B Bango--

Assuming your relative lived in Brockway Borough in Jefferson County, there is only 1 EDs to look at. You can rent the microfilm.

http://1930census.archives.gov/resultsP ... ch=byPlace

Peg