Census records are one of our first go to sources in researching our family history.
In researching our ancestors sometimes we unexpectedly find a relation that we did not know existed.
Maybe they were born in 1881 and married by 1900 and it is only after we begin collecting records on their family that their name surfaces. Maybe they were just omitted on a census and living on their own ten years later but sooner or later we all discover an ancestor we did not know existed.
Then there are the children who died to young. And sometimes the paper trail is only a burial. Dorothy Jean Steinauer was born yesterday on the 23 of November 1940 in Dawson, Nebraska, the youngest child of my grandparents Julius and Mary Farrell Steinauer and I am aware of her short life.
Dorothy was not yet born to be enumerated on the 1940 Federal Census and was eight months old when she unexpectedly died the following year on the 26 of July 1941. There are very few records that record her existence but Dorothy counted; she was loved and she is missed.
Dorothy has a birth record, a death record, a baptismal record and a burial record. She is buried in St. Mary Cemetery in Dawson where her parents would eventually be buried. I feel fortunate that these records exist. If we look we might find mention of her in the small town newspaper or see her name inscribed on the headstone next to her parents. But only if we look for more records on our families than a census record and only if we are more than name collectors in recording our family history.
Dorothy Jean and my grandma Mary Steinauer, 1941
