It has been my experience that when researching census records, it helps to have all the associated names on hand when looking for the primary family. Almost regularly you will see that a daughter in a primary family will marry a neighbor boy. If you go into a census with all the married-in names, they will almost always pop up as a neighbor, a landlord or a tenant. They may live in the same house, across the street or next door, and sometimes, the census taker does your job for you! Happy Hunting - Happy New Year!
Census research - don't overlook the bizarre!While searching the 1920 census for my grandparents in Cleveland, OH, I learned a valuable lesson that will be my "hot tip" for that ancestor you just can't seem to find but you know they are there. My grandfather, Metro Petrick, came from Austria Hungary and had limited English. I knew he had settled in Cleveland before 1910 and was in that census but I could not find him there in 1920. I used the soundex codes for P, searched the locator cards and just couldn't find him. Finally in frustration, I started a street search in the actual census records and there he was with the right family. The recorder, obviously not of Slovak decent, had recorded his name, very neatly as: Metro, Petrick ! When I went back to the Soundex, there he was coded with the M's. Since then, when I lose someone in the Soundex, I check under *both* their first and last names! Good luck!
The census can offer a lot of information. I found the dates that some of my husband's family lines immigrated in to the US from Russia. With that information, I then knew I could go further back on the MO Census to find more on them. What a windfall that turned out to be. And, I suggest that if your states did a mid-census, aka state census, check that out also. Not all of them did one, so it is rather hit and miss. And don't forget the 1890 Census. Granted while most of it is missing/destroyed, some fragments remain from AL, DC, GA, IL, MN, NJ, NY, NC, OH, SD and TX. The NARA has them on Microfilm Publication M407. There are only about 6,160 names indexed on the ones that are remaining. So not all hope is gone...if you have family in these states, try checking it out.
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