Randy has another good challenge for his SNGF this week. The challenge is to find a census record for any of our 16 great-great grandparents (from last week) that we might not have. Barring that, we could locate a grandparent, parent, sibling of grandparent, someone from our spouse's line, etc. Since I only have 1.5 generations of family in this country, and no access to census records in Poland if there even are any, I located the few census records that pertain to my family in the U.S. years ago. Ditto for my husband's family.
I've been trying to determine if Chester Louis Lipa is on my family tree for a while now so I figure finding him on a census record would qualify (he's probably family even if I can't yet prove it, so that counts, right?).
Since footnote.com is currently offering free access to the 1930 census, I went there to look (it was free last night when I signed in but today the same images were labeled "premium", hmmm). And I found him, just an infant, living with his parents Stanley and Anna Lipa. Here's the info I got:
Lipa, Stanley, Head of household, rented his home (duplex) for $16/month. No indication that he owned a radio. White male, age 25 at last birthday, married at age 25. Stanley was not a student in 1929 but was able to read and write. He was born in Michigan, both his parents were born in Poland. He spoke English at home and was employed as a clipper in a cushion factory. He was employed at the time of the census, not a veteran. Address: 2314 Whalen Street, Hamtramck, Wayne County, Michigan. Information as of April 11, 1930.
Lipa, Anna, wife of Stanley. White female, age 21. Married at age 21. She was not a student in 1929 but was able to read and write. Anna was born in Massachusetts, both her parents were born in Poland. She spoke English at home. No occupation listed for her.
Lipa, Chester, son of Stanley. White male child, 0/12 mos old. Not in school, he was born in Michigan as was his father. His mother was born in Massachusetts.
Source:
1930 U.S. census, Wayne County, Michigan, population schedule, Hamtramck, enumeration district (ED) 82-964, sheet 16B, dwelling 2314 Whalen Street; digital image, footnote.com (http://footnote.com ); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T626.
The census form was completed on April 11, 1930 and Chester is listed as 0/12 mos old. I have his death certificate and it indicates his birth date was May 11, 1930. The holy card from his funeral lists his birth date as March 11, 1930. I assume the death certificate was in error because he would not have shown up on this census form recorded in April if he wasn't born until May of 1930 ;-) So I'm going with the March 11, 1930 date for the time being.
Well, this was a fun exercise! How I miss doing this kind of research. I wish my ancestors had more time in America so I'd have more records to search for. Lately I've been considering going back and re-researching all the films for my Lipa ancestors at the FHC to re-photograph the records at a higher resolution. Back when I first photographed them I only had a 1 megapixel digital camera. The images look just fine, even at 1 megapixel, but it would give me an excuse to get into research again. Even if just to look up everything I've already found. How sad is that?
