What I write about...

I am a genealogist, a librarian, and an educator. I write about my forays into the past as I research the family histories of myself and others. How and where I find the information is as important as what I find. I am a co-author of the book Fostering Family History Services: A Guide for Librarians, Archivists, and Volunteers, published by Libraries Unlimited in 2016.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Following Every Clue: Chasing Anthony Gomez to Find Louise Floret

Do we always see all the clues that are there? And even if we do see them do we investigate them?

Recently, I was doing some research for a client. I was struggling to find documentation for some of his ancestors. One challenge in particular is Louise Floret (1869-1924), who was born and died in New Orleans. In general, there have been lots of key records missing for her family members which has greatly hampered the research. Even though civil birth records have been consistently kept in the city since the 1830s, I have not been able to locate one for Louise. I have combed the indexing name by name for a couple years surrounding the time of her birth. Either her record never made it into the index, or one was never created for her. I suspect the latter, because the March 1869 birth date reported for her on the 1900 U.S. Census fell during the height of post Civil War chaos in the city. Because her parents were French immigrants, the chances that she was a Roman Catholic are high. I have requested a search for her baptismal record.

But her absence in U.S. Census records before her marriage was more troubling. She should have been recorded in both 1870 and 1880. After lots of flailing around, I was finally able to find her in 1870. Here is the household as it was recorded, with actual names in brackets:

John Bouret [Jean Alexandre Floret]                                  M 40 France
Louise Urswerg [Louise (Tesson) Risbourg Floret]            F 37 France
Felix Urswerg [Felix Risbourg]                                          M 12 Louisiana
Jules Urswerg [Jules Risbourg]                                           M 9 Louisiana
Louise Urswerg [Louise Floret]                                          F  0 Louisiana

The enumerator, "John O'Hirdes, Asst. Marshall" was baffled by this blended family. He incorrectly spelled all the surnames. Their French accents must have been a barrier.  He also incorrectly listed Louise, the wife of the head of household, and mother to all these children, under her first husband's name, not the name of her current husband. Then he listed the youngest child also with her mother's first husband's surname instead of that of her father, who was the head of household. Not easy to track or untangle this mess. But I used one of my favorite tricks: substitute a wildcard character, usually *, in lieu of the first consonant or two in the surname, and omit a first name.

But where was this family in 1880?  Again, a puzzling lack of records hindered the research. I still cannot locate a death record for Louise's father Jean Alexandre Floret, but it's likely he died around 1871 or so, because that's the last year he was listed in the city directory. No obituary in the mainstream newspapers, but I can try to find one in the French newspaper, for which hardly any indexing exists. I can also eventually send off for a church burial record, though not until they are done with the first batch of requests--only four at a time permitted.

I know with greater certainty another member of the household had died before 1880. Louise's half brother Felix died 3 June 1873, and there was a death record for him. So why can't I locate Louise and her mother in 1880?

I do find Louise fairly easily in 1900. By then, she has been married for almost fifteen years. She, her husband Joseph C. Simonds, and three of their children are listed at 915 Johnson St.in the fifth ward of New Orleans. All is as it should be, except for two unknown people living with them, Anthony Gomez and his one year old son Henry. They are listed respectively as brother-in-law and nephew to the head of household. Whaat?


       "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MS5V-VGW : accessed 29 January 2017), Jos C Simonds, 9th Precinct New Orleans city Ward 5, Orleans, Louisiana, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 51, sheet 16B, family 326, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,240,572.

If these relationships were recorded accurately, then Anthony has to be married to either a sister of Joseph C. Simonds, the head of household, or to his wife Louise (Floret) Simonds. I know that Joseph had two sisters, but they both were married to two brothers with the surname Grand, and they were both listed in their own households. So was this Anthony Gomez married to a sister of Louise?  The only siblings I knew about for her were  her half brothers Felix and Jules Risbourg, the issue of her mother's first marriage.

I start to dig for information about Anthony and Henry Gomez.



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