My grandmother had told me that Thomas Whitehead (her father-in-law) had married Elizabeth Ann Carding, so I knew I had the correct marriage certificate. I also now knew that Thomas Whitehead's father was Thomas Whitehead and that he had already died by the time Thomas Jr. married in 1906. I was very new to research and wasn't quite sure where to go from here. Adding to the dilema was my fairly common surname, Whitehead, and that side of my family lived in Manchester, one of the largest parishes in England. I searched for Thomas Whitehead on the 1901 census, the census before he was married. I couldn't find a Thomas Whitehead, the son of Thomas Whitehead. As I began looking through the results all of a sudden something jumped out at me.
I was looking at the result for Thomas Whitehead, the nephew of Martha Whitehead. I hadn't heard of Martha Whitehead before in relation to my family. However, what caught my attention was that Martha, the head of the household, was living at 16 Princess Street. BINGO!! That was the same address Thomas listed as his residence at the time of marriage on his marriage certificate. I had found something to link the Thomas in the marriage record to the Thomas on the census. I was then able to find him at the same address on the 1891 census. All I knew about Thomas when I began was his name, approximate birth year, and father's name. I now knew his siblings names and aunts and some of their married names. I have used this strategy many times in my research and it often proves successful.
Do you have anything to share about how you got started and how you knew you were connecting to the right people in your tree?
