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Skriv ut sidan - Äldre inlägg (arkiv) till 2004-11-17
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Titel: Äldre inlägg (arkiv) till 2004-11-17
Skrivet av: Jan Ek (Janek) skrivet 2003-11-13, 15:35
Deborah,
There is absolutely no problem with you posting in English here, I think all of us trying to answer questions about US immigrants understand you just fine.
But the questions are tricky. If you have exhausted the death index and census possibilities it's not very much more to find on the internet right now. Have you looked at naturalization records at all? Some are possible to search at the Iron Range Foundation (http://www.ironrangeresearchcenter.org/scripts/runisa.dll?irrrb:searchresults) in Chisholm MN, or at Ancestry (really the same index).
As you have already found out, finding a Carl Anderson is easy, to find the right one is not. To search for the last name Johnson is just as difficult, half of Minnesota are Johnsons.
Al was probably Albert or Alfred, or possibly even something even more exotic, or what do you think?
I don't know how far you are from St. Paul, the research library at MNHS is a great facility. Although there can be waiting lines for the copy machine and generally busy at certain times, it is possible to check quite a few people in an hour or two. At one of my visits I had a list of about 20 candidates to check, and I did that in two hours. So even if you have a common name, it could be done.
A big job for sure, I can see there are 138 Kenneth Johnsons and 172 Edith Johnsons. Some should be possible to discard though. And some are maybe more possible than others too, like a Kenneth Rudolph Johnson - the brother's name - but it's pure guesswork of course.
If I were to do an undertaking like this I would focus on Josephine for many reasons, she's the one you have an exact birth date for, and finding a death date can lead to a possible obituary with information on all her children. From the list of Josephines I can see less than 40 possible, and two obvious first choices; Josephine M. dies 1948 and Josephine Matilda 1916, both in Ramsey (St. Paul).
There is a possibility she is indexed as Matilda J., Matilda Josephine or plain Matilda too of course. As always you have to expect the unexpected.
A quirk with the MNHS index is you always have to search on Mr and Mrs as first names too, a poor job from the indexers.