The fun in family history research is that every time you add one little tidbit of information to a person's profile, you are one step closer to cementing his or her identity.

1900 Bibb County Alabama (Jesse Winters Family)

I found the census record for George B. Winters (well, he was a child in the family of Jesse F. Winters), for both 1900 and 1910. For once the ages for George actually synced! He was 15 in 1900 and 25 in 1910.

In 1900, the family was located in Bibb County, Alabama. See above.

1910 Walker County Alabama Census

In 1910, they were located in Walker County, Alabama, where other members of Jesse's "nuclear" family were already living, and/or they were living also in Winston County, which is contiguous to Walker County.

Building a profile for the family, one individual at a time, is a labor of love.

You will catch yourself getting dizzy as you find and add new sources, then go from one to the other source, making sure the story lines up, and sometimes finding that it doesn't!

RootsMagic has been a great piece of software for my genealogy, as it lets you add so many different types of facts and documents. I track my census info by adding it as a "residence" fact. That way, I have the enumeration date of the census. I "peg" the individual's info and include the occupation if there is one, in the notes section. I've also, at times, added the occupation as fact, so that I can track that (folks often had more than one occupation and I like to add as much to that individual's profile as I can locate).

At the beginning, some of our family groups are a little bit lacking in information; the chart is nearly naked, here!  However, as we pursue records and evaluate the data, the result becomes more and more satisfying.

Starting Off: A Little Slim on the Pickins'