An Improbable Discovery

Most everyone who searches on-line has used FamilySearch.org. It’s free and has lots of information but most of us never use some of the lesser known features, like the Card File. Yesterday while poking around I came across a section and a film with a little over 6000 pages. I never expected to find anything but I thought I’d have a look. I began at page 1 and clicked forward about 50 pages. Patience is really not my strongest trait. so I added entered 150, then 400 etc. I started to see alphabetical pattern but nothing so I skipped ahead to “H” looking for my Hunter family. Nothing! Moving on I jumped to the 1000s then 2000s, and noticed street names and I was at “Stanley St” so, I backed up looking for my “Shelley Street” and bingo! There were cards for even numbers and cards for odd numbered addresses. The years were a bit too early for me ( I need 1899 on ) but in the upper right corner of each card was a lot number. Using these I could cross-reference the addresses to a map I had from Gwulo.

My family had leases in sections of IL 116 and IL 119 and they also maintained a residence at 11 Shelley Street, which during this period was apparently home the Parsee Church and Clubhouse. Some of the lot numbers did not exist yet and came into use later as larger lots were sectioned into smaller ones. The Club Lusitano was on IL 125 from what I can tell although the lot number isn’t shown on the map I have.

So, the point of this post is this. When you come across these large and impossible looking databases, do give it a try as there’s often information there that’s really quite easy to find. One I noticed that there was an order to it all, either by number of alphabetical it was not difficult to navigate back and forth to find the exact spot. As can be seen in the picture below, there are other databases o that same film, will and the st Michael’s Cemetery ( there’s a separate catalog file for China Cemeteries that is searchable by name and it’s also on Family Search ) I hope this will eventually be of use to some readers