It was not until 1850 that censuses began to record the first names of all members of a household. The US censuses before that, taken every decade beginning in 1790, recorded only the name of the head of the household and the numbers of males and females in various age bands. Before that, the only information was scattered from one colony to another, from one town to another, and might be found in various official administrative documents or in church records.

Women are particularly difficult to research because their maiden names disappear at marriage. They rarely could own property and were seldom in charge of their own fates.

One of my ancestors, Sarah, the second wife of a direct ancestor, the second Nicholas Ackley, has been a mystery. Recently, someone reached me with an inquiry about an Ackley ancestor that led back to her and piqued my interest in once again finding more about her.

All I knew about Sarah was that she had married Nicholas-2 Ackley about 1757 and bore their first child, Lewis, in 1758 and second (and last) in 1762. I knew much more about Nicholas-2 who was born in 1708 in East Haddam, CT and died in Colchester, the next town over, in 1763. Nicholas already had raised a family with his first wife, who died about 1756, and would have been 48 when he married Sarah.

I have explained the process that I used to search for Sarah here, including such results as I have. Although this was targeted toward research in the 1700s, the principles apply to research during any time period. Setting specific parameters in this way can narrow down the search, making it less frustrating and more productive.

For this search, I used the following criteria for Sarah Wilson Ackley.

1. Year of birth between 1717 and 1736, based on possible age at marriage (21 at youngest) and oldest likely age at birth of last known child (45)
2. Year of death between 1763 and 1806, based on last known record (a guardianship granted in 1763) and maximum age of 70, generous but not impossible at the time
3. Possible maiden names: Lewis or Wilson. The record of the marriage to Nicholas shows her as Wilson; her first son is named Lewis and it was popular at that time to use the mother’s maiden name as a son’s first name
4. Possible widowed name: Wilson. It would have been unusual for a woman in her early 20s to have married a man of Nicholas’s age for her first marriage; marrying later as a widow would have been more likely.
5. Catchment radius: within 25–30 miles of East Haddam/Colchester where Nicholas lived. Travel was difficult—meeting a potential spouse was most likely close to home. (The radius was expanded if nothing appeared within it.)

Because Sarah was such a popular name at the time, searching for a Sarah without specifying a last name produces dozens and dozens of possibilities. The numbers are fewer in the catchment area, using the date parameters, but even sorting through all those Sarahs could be overwhelming.

Note that all the research was done online. More information may be out there on the ground somewhere.

Did I find Sarah? Yes and no. I eliminated many records of women who could not be her. The results showed that her maiden name was probably not Lewis or Wilson. I found one man who died in the early 1750s who could very well have been her first husband—Samuel Wilson Jr., who lived and died within the radius. If Sarah was about the same age as him, she would have been 30 when Lewis was born—about the age I would have expected. Although the results are not certain, it does help focus further searches and eliminates a number of Sarahs with whom our Sarah has been confused.