Tuesday's Tip: Check the Map!

Where did that ancestor live? Sometimes it's not enough to simply record the street address straight from the official document--map it and you'll often get extra insight, or at least confirmation that the address was accurate.*

Take my experience with Gussie and Michael, both living in the Bronx in 1919 when they married. I wanted to see where their residences were in relation to each other, having discovered more than once that my ancestors met or were introduced as a result of being in the neighborhood.

It was easy to find Clay Avenue on the map (see "Michael 1919" above). But no Linton Avenue seemed to exist in the Bronx. So I mapped where Gussie was living in 1915, according to the NY Census--on St. Paul's Place, a street only a few blocks long and within walking distance of Michael in 1919.

Checking the area more carefully, I noticed Clinton Avenue just a few streets away from St. Paul's Place. Nothing else even sounds like Linton Avenue. So Clinton Avenue is my best guess about where Gussie was living at the time of her marriage.

Would this couple have been introduced by family or friends? Or did they meet at a workplace or a local deli? I don't know the answer, but I do feel certain that Gussie made her home on Clinton Avenue, not Linton Avenue as recorded on her marriage license.

* As a Facebook comment pointed out, address numbers can change over the years, and streets may also go away or be renamed. Very good points! My goal in mapping addresses is to see whether the street or avenue is there--and if not, some online searching will usually turn up either evidence of its history or nothing at all (if nothing, good chance the street was not accurately spelled or listed).

Many of the tenements where my NYC ancestors lived have been torn down, but the streets or avenues are usually still to be found on the maps. Not always, but if not, I can often find them in other records (a newspaper report or a census page) to confirm the existence of that street or road in that place. And CHECK city directories, as the first comment below this blog post notes! Thanks again for the great comments.