I'm researching a house in Bellaire, any history buffs out there who might be able to help me?

Question

the house is on the 36th block on belmont st. The old Dr. Lancione house. I'm doing a house history for the current owners.

Sorry Bellaire,Ohio the house was built in 1900 by the Blum family. But the other owner Gus Vournikes I can find nothing except his WWI draft card which tells me very little any help would be appreciated

Answer 1

I can offer you several suggestions. First of all, "Stuart King" had a good idea when he suggested that the reason you can't find more records on Gus Vournikes is due to variant spellings of the name, although his answer reveals a limited understanding of how these variants actually work. Many people didn't spell their name in one particular way. "Standard" spellings for surnames only began to take hold in the mid 1800s, and if a person was only partially literate, they could spell their own name in many different ways well into the 1900s.

Also, many records were actually written down by *someone else*, based on questions they asked. That person would often write down a name the way they heard it. If you were looking for the name, "Gus Vournikes", I assume you took that name from deeds relating to the house in question. The fact the name was spelled that way on a property deed, a document where most people are more than usually concerned with accuracy, suggests the spelling you have (unless you did introduce a typo), *is* the one *he* used.

In that case, you can't find other records for him because the census enumerator, town clerk, and all the other people who wrote down his name in those records, *heard* that name differently, and thus *spelled* it differently. Or, of course, the indexers could have had trouble *reading* the handwriting on the record, and spelled it incorrectly in the *index*. Either way, you need to think of other ways of spelling the name. Gus could be a nickname for an unguessable foreign first name, or it could be August, Augustus, Gustave, Gustaf, etc. Vournikes could be, just to suggest a few possibilities, Vornickes, Voornikes, Voornicky, Vornicks - you get the idea. This is one of those names where there are an awful lot of possible alternate spellings.

If you *still* can't find the name, there are a couple of other tricks you could try. For one thing, you said the World War I Draft Registration Card didn't tell you much. Yet, in most cases, it should have given you, at the very least, an age and a birthplace for Gus. Try searching a census index using *only* the first name, an approximate age (corrected for the year of the census, of course), and state or country of birth. Limit the search to Bellaire, and then read down the list of results. The name may not be obvious - I once tried this approach in the 1930 Census for a James Sweetnam who turned out to be indexed as *Smutnan* (even though the original record clearly read "Sweetnam").

If *that* approach doesn't work out for you, there is another way. The deeds you have for this house will often list the names of people owning adjoining properties. Select one of those names, and locate *that* person on the census. If Gus wasn't 'skipped' for some reason (and a certain percentage of people often were, for various reasons), he will probably be listed in the same enumeration district. Be warned, however, you will have to search for listings for the street and number - also, if the person you choose lived *behind* him, on another street, it could be another district entirely. You could also just figure out which district the address you are interested in was included in, then search those pages for the correct street and number.

However you arrive there, once you locate at least one census entry, you will have at least one more spelling for Gus' last name that you *know* was used at least once. Look up *that* spelling. Also, think of variants based on that spelling, if you need to. A census entry will also give you more information on his family - use your head and that knowledge to figure out ways to locate still more information. Every piece you locate will make finding the next piece just that much easier.

If you are still stuck, go to , locate the APG-L mailing list, subscribe, and post a *detailed* question there. The list is not limited to professionals, but it *is* for people who are serious about genealogical research, and if you don't offer a lot more details than you did in this question, a lot of people may tell you off, but no one is likely to help you. On the other hand, the people offering advice there are the ones who know all the tricks for digging out really tough to track down records.

I don't want to be too harsh on you, but if you are reduced to asking your question here, and phrasing it so carelessly, I *do* hope you are not charging the current owners. If you are a friend, and doing this at no charge, then what you are doing is reasonable. If you are charging them, on the basis that you know what you are doing, they could possibly sue you for fraud if they ever located this message. Whatever you are doing, you are clearly in over your head. If you intend to do this kind of thing often, you should buy and read a number of books on genealogical and historical research.

Answer 2

I don't know anything about it, but I may be able to point you in the right direction.

Find out what county Bellaire is in. Go to

http://genforum.genealogy.com/oh/counties.html

Select the county. Post again. When you do, PLEASE put all the details you already know into the post, so that some kind-hearted person doesn't spend an hour looking up things you already know.

Those details may include the names of all the owners or dwellers, gleaned from the old city directories in the library or census entries; their legal names, maiden names, birth dates, death dates, marriage dates, names of children.

Second, make sure you list alternate spellings. Neither Roots Web World Connect nor familysearch have any individual named "Vournikes" at all. I looked for a Gus Vournikes who died in Ohio first, then any individual in any place. Both came up with 0 hits. That tells me he spelled it differently, you have a typo or it is the rarest surname in Ohio. There isn't anything in Google for the name either.

If you ever post anything again related to genealogy, write out the town names as "city, county, state" if they are in the US; in other countries, the town plus shire/county/admin district, state/province, country name.

Best of luck!
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PS - This is why you should add state at least and county if at all possible:

(City, State, County)
Bellaire PA Lancaster
Bellaire OH Belmont
Bellaire TX Harris
Bellaire LA Bossier
Bellaire MI Antrim
Bellaire AR Chicot
Bellaire KS Sedgwick
Bellaire MN Ramsey
Bellaire NY Queens
Bellaire KS Smith

(You are lucky; there is just one Bellaire in OH. Look at Buffalo Gap, however:

BuffaloGap TX Travis
BuffaloGap TX Taylor

http://resources.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/townco.cgi

Answer 3

Doesn't sound like Bel Air in L.A. please give us a hint, like the city...