Over several weeks I have been filling in documentation for and adding families descended from James Anderson (1786-1858) — Priscilla Coffin (1793-1853). The Anderson in each of these families is a brother or sister of my great-grandfather, Harmon Anderson.

I have found it relatively easy (perhaps too easy?) to fill in this information by combining information from other family histories at Ancestry.com (clues as to husbands and wives, most especially wives) and then searching for evidence in the census database, marriage and death databases and so forth.

All of these families originated in Ohio in Greene County. Ohio has active historical and genealogical societies and creates a lot of accessible information.

Using these sources I have added members and evidence supporting the individuals. The census data only provides evidence through 1930. As the evidence builds I am led to additional sources confirming marriages, births and deaths that extend further into the 20 Century.

Ancestry has added a neat device that will list suggested additional sources of information on the individual. This has proven very useful in filling in the family members. I have also been able to quickly and easily add members to a given family as their census records come up.

For example, when an record is located in the 1900 census it will contain additional information on year of marriage, birth date, occupation, relationship to the head of the household and so forth. If that record is selected to be saved to the tree the software also suggests others family members in the household be included in your tree. You may check these to see that they match up with what you have already entered (“is this an existing person?”) or you may simply check to add if there is no existing person.

I always check this new information to be sure it makes sense in terms of the family being researched — is the location probable, are the ages within range and so forth. When we have actual birth date evidence, the census age my be off by a year, so allowances have to be made for misreporting or the approximation used by the enumerator when the information is recorded.

This system has allowed me to quickly and accurately add people to the tree (subject to careful review and checking!).

I will have to add this information from Ancestry.com to this history in the coming months. In the mean time I am enjoying the chase and the additions to the family history.

You can find this new information at Ancestry.com in the “Anderson Horney Haacke Holmes Family” (http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/22667726/family). You will need to be a member to access this location.