After looking over my timeline of William H Moore, I became determined to check Brooklyn in the 1875 New York State Census. For me, finding William in 1875 would be a big help. This way I would be able to tell whether he had made it back from Chicago yet. I didn’t like having that huge gap between 1871 and 1880.
The first thing I did was check the Brooklyn city directory for 1875. I figured if I could find William at one of his usual addresses, then my job would be that much easier!
Analysis:
- There are two William H Moores in the directory. One is a basketmaker and the other a carpenter. The carpenter makes me happy, but I don’t recognize the address, so it’s going down as my first possibility.
- There are 3 other carpenters that are just listed as William Moore. I’ve added them to the list under the other William H Moores. If I find the other two, and still haven’t found my William, then I’ll check them.
My next step was to plot the first William H Moore into Google Earth to see where exactly he was located in 1875. From there I can see how far he was from the later addresses I’ve documented for William’s family.
It might be a little hard to tell in the scaled down version, but Stockton Street is not far at all from William H Moore‘s 1880-1886 address.
My next step was to find out where to start. FamilySearch has the 1875 New York State Census, but not an index. There is a website that has a great list of the 1876 Election Districts of Brooklyn.
Now the hard part comes. I have a little clue in the fact that I have never found William H Moore in a Ward under 20. So I decided to start at the highest ward numbers and work my way backwards.
Ward 25, District 4, doesn’t exactly work. I used the polygon tool in Google Earth to see the area covered by each district. The red thumb tack is where the William H Moore in the city directory is located. With this, I know I can probably jump to another ward, and check to see if that’s a little closer to where I need to be.
So I looked around where I want to find William in the census, and tried to find a boundary street in the district listings that matched. I hit pay dirt in the 21st ward. All the districts in the 21st ward have boundary street combinations of Lafayette Avenue, Nostrand Ave, and Myrtle Avenue.
Jackpot! This is the 21st Ward, District 6. While it took a little while to plot the different districts. I was able to keep them plotted and turned off in Google Earth in case I needed to check them for the other William Moores.
As it turns out, I won’t need to because this is in fact my William on Stockton Street. So I’m now able to confirm another address for William between 1870 and 1880. I also know that his family made the trek between Chicago and Brooklyn sometime between 1871 and 1875. Despite what it says on the census, the three boys were all born in Illinois.
So this is how I found my William H Moore in 1875 without an index to search!
