Should You Be Looking for Religious Guidance?

A member of the Tip of the Day group on Facebook posted about her struggle to find her Irish ancestors in the 1850 census a large New England town. A variety of search approaches was not successful. I suggested she search for the priest of her ancestor's church and perform a manual search for her relatives using the priest's residence as a starting point. It's likely the local priest lived in the same neighborhood as his parishioners.