Tonight I finally found him.
Well, not him actually; I found my great grandfather Ines Gonzalez the
first night I went looking. Blogpost "That First Night Online"
But tonight, I finally found him in the 1940 census.
I had been looking for him in the census for a while
now. 1940 would be the last census he
was enumerated in, as he died in 1943, but I just could not find him. How I finally came across his entry was a
fluke.
I recently have been using the city directories for
Harlingen Texas to fill in addresses for my g-grandfather and noticed that his
son, Jose Gonzalez, was showing up in the directories too. It was a hunch it was his son and of course
the directory listed his address. This
was the same address that was on the death certificate of Ines 3 years
later. A few months ago I was looking
for the address in the 1940 census, but the enumerator jumped around a
little. What I did pick up was that the
son, Jose, was living with a woman named Isabel. I had not heard of her before. In a subsequent conversation with my aunt,
she confirmed that her Uncle Jose “Pepe” Gonzales was married to an Isabel
originally.
With that information, I went looking for a marriage record
on Familysearch.org, and a census record popped up. And there was Ines listed as living with his
son, but my g-grandfather’s name was spelled as Enes![1] I have never looked for that variation.
 |
| Screen shot from 1940 US Census |
I just goes to show, never give up. And, if you dedicate your search to just your
direct line, you may just miss something.
[1] "United States Census, 1940," index and images,
FamilySearch
(https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1961-27820-10873-24?cc=2000219 :
accessed 05 Oct 2014), Texas > Cameron > Justice Precinct 6, Harlingen
> 31-49 Justice Precinct 6, Harlingen City bounded by (N) Harrison Av; (E)
E; (S) Lincoln Av; (W) city limits; also Valley Baptist Hospital > image 54
of 65; citing NARA digital publication of T627.
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