First, I will admit I was a little short-sighted about getting all the city directories for my grandfather Percival before we moved out of the Detroit area. My bad.
However, Ancestry has been touting using the city directories to assist in locating relatives on the 1940 census.
These are the problems I've encountered with that:
1. Incomplete directories. The last name is Percival, not gonna find it in a directory that only goes to the Gs.
2. Street index. The 1940 index starts at T. I checked Virginia Park. Not there. Okay, maybe the family still lived on Ferguson for a couple years after my grandmother's death. Oh, wait, it starts at T. 1934-1938 directories are no help.
In 1930, my grandparents were living at 4203 Dickerson. I know they also lived on Ferguson for a while - my dad remembers living there during the Great Depression.
On the other side of the family, my mother's side? Mom was living with her aunt Rose and uncle John Ochenfeld/Ochensfeld/Ochsenfeld until Rose's death on November 20, 1939. At that time, uncle John went to live with one of his children and my mother lived briefly with a friend, Carmen and a relative, Myrtle Whiteside McCarty before going to work for the Hopkinses. Her sister lived with two different uncles, her brother with a cousin, but by 1940, he was 17. I'm not even sure my grandfather was enumerated because rumor has it he was living on the streets by this time.
Um. I have my work cut out for me. I think I'll wait for the indexing. Here's hoping that the 1940 in indexed better than the 1920, where Zimmeth was indexed as Gimmith!
Copyright 2010-2012, ACK for Gene Notes
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