Neighbors by Census

by Ann Buckley

My e-mail address is rasbuckley@prodigy.net
and I live in Rochester, NY.

In my 11 year history of genealogical research, I have had my share of odd coincidences and 'divine intervention'. My latest adventure involves a close friend who I went to high school with 25 years ago.

She lives in Virginia, and I live in Rochester, NY, but we still stay in regular contact via e-mail. We both share this wonderful hobby of genealogy. I offered to look up names for her in the NY Federal Census for 1900, as I used to have access to an indexed version of it, and she had no access at all.

She gave me the name of her great grandfather, William Warner, along with the name of his wife and son. Well, there were many William Warners in NY State in 1900, but after several hits and misses, I finally found the family she was looking for. They were living in the town of Union, Broome County, NY.

When I took a closer look at that particular page, I noticed the name directly above the William Warner family was Hiram Martin, my very own great-great grandfather! They didn't just live on the same road in the same town, they were next door neighbors!

Imagine if they had ever known that their great granddaughters would someday meet, 75 years from then, in another town, and then come back to find them on a census record.

Submitted:  Apr. 7 2001

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