More Searching

Sometimes it was hard to find information on my ancestors. For our Ancestral File assignment I hardly found any of the information I was looking for. I originally searched for Mary Anne Gronaw. I didn’t really find anything on Familysearch.org. I searched Mary’s name in the Ancestral file but only one Mary Anne Gronaw came up and she was born in the 1600’s and was from Wales. I also didn’t find anything in the Pedigree Research File or the International Genealogical Index.


I then realized I could search for her under her married name, Mary Anne Sparks. This came up with 21 matches. However, none of them were her. I then checked the Pedigree Resource File and it came up with 27 matches, however none of them were her either. I didn’t use the International Genealogical Index because Mary Anne lived in Maryland although I know now that I should have checked that anyway. At one point I thought I had found her because I searched the US Social Security Death List and found a Mary Sparks from Maryland however she died in 1964 and my Mary died in 1919. The earliest birth date the Social Security Death Index has was 1880 and Mary was born 20 years earlier in 1860. I also didn’t find anything on the census because there were no matched for Mary and George Sparks in Maryland.


However, I did find information on her husband, George Sparks. I checked the US 1880 Census and I found results for George Sparks, born in 1857. The information I got from my grandmother said he was born in 1856 but all of the other information matched up, the location was Queen Annes County, Maryland. At the time of the census he was 23 and still single and living at home. This is probably why I couldn’t find a match for both of them, because they weren’t married yet. It says that his father’s occupation was a farmer, which I know is correct. The family we still have that lives in Queen Annes County are all still farmers to this day. I downloaded the GEDCOM for both George H Sparks and his father George S Sparks so I now have a 7th generation.