Finding Isaac Seaver (1823-1901) in FamilySearch Record Collections

One of the ways I test out every online U.S. record collection is to search for my second great-grandfather, Isaac Seaver (1823-1901).  There are a lot of records for him available online, and it's a good measure of the breadth of the different record collections.

Today, it is FamilySearch's turn in the barrel - what information is there about Isaac Seaver on FamilySearch?

I used Search criteria of:

*  Not exact search
*  First name = 'isaac" (not exact)
*  Last name = "seaver" (not exact)
*  Birth place = "Massachusetts" (not exact)
*  Birth year range = "1821" to "1825"

1)  Here is the Search screen (at https://www.familysearch.org/search):

2)  After clicking on the blue "Search" button on the screen above, I was presented with 146 matches to my search criteria (two screens shown):

There were more matches to my search criteria on succeeding pages of results.

3)  A summary of the results for Isaac Seaver (1823-1901) includes (in approximate order):

**   Massachusetts, Births and Christenings, 1639-1915:  Birth in Westminster, birth in Leominster (Index only, no image)
*  1900 United States Census: Leominster, Worcester, Mass. (index, image)
*  1880 United States Census: Leominster, Worcester, Mass. (index, image on Ancestry)
*  1870 United States Census: no town given, Worcester, Mass. (index, image)
*  1860 United States Census: Westminster, Worcester, Mass. (index, image on Fold3)
*  1850 United States Census: Medfield, Norfolk, Mass. (index, image)
*  Massachusetts, Deaths, 1841-1915: Leominster, Worcester, Mass. (index, image)
*  Massachusetts, State Census, 1865: Westminster, Worcester, Mass. (index, image)
** Massachusetts, Marriages, 1695-1910:  1888 to Alvina Lewis, no place given (index only);
** Massachusetts, Deaths and Burials, 1795-1910:  1901 in Leominster, Worcester, Mass. (index only, no image)
*  Massachusetts, Births, 1841-1915: 3 entries for children (Index, Image)
*  United States, Civil War Soldiers Index (no image)
*  United States, Civil War and Later Pension Index, 1861-1917: (index, image on Fold3)
*  Massachusetts, Marriages, 1841-1915:  1846 to Juliet Glazier, in Rutland, Mass. (index, image)
** Massachusetts, Deaths and Burials, 1795-1910:  1910 death of daughter, Juliet Bryant, no place (index, no image)
** Massachusetts, Deaths and Burials, 1795-1910: 1894 death of son, Benjamin Seaver, no place (index, no image)
*  Massachusetts, Deaths, 1841-1915: 1910 death of daughter, Juliett Bryant, in Leominster (index, image)

There were 22 matches for Isaac Seaver (1823-1901) in the first 50 matches, and none after the 50th match.  There were 15 different record collections with entries found for Isaac Seaver (1823-1901).  Note that the IGI extracted data is in the three collections denoted with an **.

I didn't see the marriage of Isaac Seaver to Lucretia Smith.  So I searched for Lucretia Smith, and found her 1851 marriage to Isaac "Leavir" in the Massachusetts, Marriages, 1841-1915 collection. An indexing error.

The birth of a fourth child to Isaac and Lucretia (Smith) Seaver is not on the list above - There is a listing in the Massachusetts, Births, 1841-1915 collection for Ellen Maria Leaver in 1861 to "Isa.. Z. Leaver" and "Luera."  Another index error.  Here is a snippet of the Ellen Maria "Leaver" birth record:

I can see how the indexing error for Isaac's name occurred.  They confused "3d" with Z. for Isaac's name.  I think I would have indexed the mother's name as "Lucretia," but I'm biased because I know the name.

There was also an 1855 Massachusetts, State Census, 1855 collection for Isaac "Leaver."

So that makes 25 entries for Isaac "Seaver" (1823-1901), in 15 FamilySearch record collections, accounting for spelling variations in the indexing.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/05/finding-isaac-seaver-1823-1901-in_17.html

copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver