I’m having some Saturday Night Genealogy Fun (#SNGF), with help from Randy Seaver and his prompts! Feel free to join in.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: September 12, 2026

Prompt: “Serendipity! What happened when you went looking for an ancestor or a genealogical record and were pleasantly surprised to find someone else or something else you didn’t expect while you were doing that search?”

Surprise!

You know how so many webinar presenters tell you about records to look for? Once you’ve searched the vital and church records, then done land and probate, there are many other genealogical gems to be had.

I found one of them quite by accident.

I have ancestors buried at St. Andrew’s in Staten Island, New York, and had requested a microfilm (yes, I’m that old) which had a book about its vital records and gravestone inscriptions.

You know how the webinar presenters also tell you to keep scrolling? The immigration record might have a page 2 or the census might have additional schedules. I kept scrolling in this microfilm to the other items on it and found a school census!

Catalog entry: https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/results?count=100&q.filmNumber=514659

For this particular school district, the list contains: name, residence, age. It’s a goldmine if you’re lucky, especially in that awkward 1880-1900 time frame! So keep scrolling, you never know what you’ll find.

AI Disclosure

This post was created by me with the help of AI tools. While AI helps organize research, the storytelling and discoveries are my own.