If you look hard enough...

You might just find something.

Now, I am not 100% positive, but I think I found my great-great-grandfather Joseph O'Reilly on the 1900 Census. I have had this copy of the census since last year and was just looking for something more concrete. Well, my great grandfather's obit lists sisters named Emma and Nellie. This census shows Joseph with a father named James, brother John, sisters Nellie and Emeli (sp?).

The dates of birth for Nellie on the death index are one year off from the census, same for Joseph.

I also have a 1910 census showing James, John and Emma. I hope these are the same people. The birth dates are a couple years off from the 1900 census.

How many households would have a Joseph, Emma and Nellie, in SF, with dates the same as my verified clan? My grand father's middle name was James and we had no idea where that came from. Now, we might.

I'm not 100% positive so I'm reserving jumping for joy. +1/2 for our side!

On another front, in my search for a possibly surviving O'Reilly cousin, I found her step sister. +1 Yahoo! subtract 1 for the fact that she hasn't heard from or seen her in 12ish years and she never had children (that should be two, but I'm only subtracting 1). The score is back to zero for me, ancestors 1000 LOL! But wait! She isn't listed on the death index. That's got to be a bonus right? +1 for our side.

Aha! Not to be beat, my dad remembered a friend living in the last known city of this cousin. Successful location and contact with old friend + 1. The fact that he's willing to go where ever we need in this city to see if he can locate the cousin +1. The score is now 3 1/2 for us and 996 1/2 for them.
Ah well, it's not all that bad.

I did manage to, kind of, organize all this paperwork. The bad news, the cat decided to knock the big binder off of my desk and it is all a jumbled mess which is worse than it was before organizing. Back to the beginning.