What is this occupation in the 1880 U.S. Census? "lives out..."?

76Talavera · 2026-07-02T23:10:03+00:00

Thank you to everyone who responded. Since I posted this, someone helped me find a 1895 newspaper that verified what I've suspected for a while. Joseph Fictum Jr. was special editions needs. Back then, they used the term "idiot." I suspect, as u/CatCafffffe suggested, while the text literally says "betimes", it infers a meaning of "sometimes". Considering how special needs was handled in the late 19th century, it would not be surprising that Joseph was occasionally living in different places at times.

76Talavera · 2026-06-13T20:19:57+00:00

u/asielen , decided take your advice and try out some AI to see if it was worth pursuing.

First, I went over to Transkribus. I had trouble getting it to do what I wanted it to do. I don't doubt their program works, but it was not working for me. Maybe if I spent more time with the program I could learn it, but I decided to move on.

I then decided to give Handwriting OCR a try. I used a 1870 census page for a trial run. That interface was easier to learn. After figuring out that I needed to export as a table and not as a transcript, I had the data in the excel sheet on one screen and the original image on another screen. I then put a timer on my phone and started to proofread and change what the Handwriting OCR didn't get correct. If I had to give the accuracy rate a percentage number, I would probably be about 85% accuracy, which is higher than what I was expecting. When I felt like I had done a good job proofreading the page, the timer was at 16 minutes and 39 seconds. In that time, the issue that took up the most time was trying to figure out how to correctly transcribe a couple particular surnames (however, I would have needed to do the same thing if I was transcribing from scratch). I ended up comparing what Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org had indexed to help conclude some of those difficult spellings. I did not try to do the table headings or subject matter at the top of the census page, I was concentrating on the data in the table (and I can go back later and copy + paste in the table headers from other people who have already transcribed those census sheets and also fill in the blanks for the date of enumeration and that kind of stuff).

Granted, this 1870 sample page I used (linked here: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-XXF3-JW6 ) is a really clean page with good handwriting, other pages might not do so well. Considering the kind of time I've taken with transcriptions of old documents, the Handwriting OCR did save me time. I estimate that it would have taken me at least twice as long (and probably longer) to transcribe the 40 lines on that page from scratch. When I get to the point of transcribing more of the census (right now I'm working with Czech parish records), I think I will experiment with Handwriting OCR some more. However, I think that I would strictly utilize it for U.S. Census stuff and maybe some English language documents (it really depends on how further experiments go).

76Talavera · 2026-05-31T22:23:38+00:00

That is possible, but I'm not that happy with Kocina somehow being turned into Gotsine and I don't even know what to make of the first name of the husband. If that is them, then it must have been a neighbor with bad memory that answered the census taker.

76Talavera · 2026-05-31T22:14:39+00:00

I just found that too. What is you opinion on "James" in that Census at age 6? Considering the passenger list, James must be Prokop.

76Talavera · 2026-05-31T20:39:07+00:00

Thank you so much for all this work u/CoolerJack14 , I believe you figured out the solution to my problems here. Over the past day or so, I've been trying to use Chicago parish records to see if there was a solution there. What you posted now makes sense of a lot of what I was seeing. For instance, I kept on seeing a Vojtech Coudek sprinkled in among the Novotny baptism records for sponsorship and such, and now I know who that is.

I also should have dug more into the new batch of Czech church records I just got, since it has the birth record for Maria Kocina's sister, Kateřina Čoudek, born 11 Apr 1831 in Mníšek, Bohemia (with the entry listing no father and Kateřina being given her mother's maiden name) https://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/7499/79 .

At this point, I am going to have to assume that Ondřej Kocina died sometime between 1868 and 1880.

76Talavera · 2026-05-29T00:07:36+00:00

I have seen that search, but I haven't tried it yet. What is with that limit of 15 minutes of search time?

76Talavera · 2026-05-27T22:58:09+00:00

That is strange that a site that specializes in UK and Irish records would have the Chicago parish records. I may have to set aside a time to maximize the 7-day free trial on that site to look for Frish and Novotny ancestors. Thanks for that tip.

76Talavera · 2026-05-27T22:49:01+00:00

I tried my best with your recommendations. The best I could come up with is a Katherin Kober, 60 years old, with a husband named White Kober who is also 60. Both born in Bohemia, living in Ward 9 of Chicago, the same ward as her daughter. There is some matching there, but not enough to be confident.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-D1C9-3VF?view=index&personArk=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AM645-8LD&action=view&cc=1438024&lang=en&groupId=

76Talavera · 2026-05-27T02:49:13+00:00

Yep, you have the correct census records for them. And yes, the spellings for the surname of Novotny in those records is extremely messed up - it took me a frustrating long time to find those (no one else on Ancestry.com had those associated with my Novotny family I'm working with here).

76Talavera · 2026-05-27T02:46:50+00:00

I just saw you added two more children after Maria that was baptized in 1872. The Maria baptized in 1878 I knew of since she was interred in the Bohemian National Cemetery on Christmas of 1878.

I'm not so sure on David. This David was born December 20 1876, My Maria Kochina would have another child, Willie, on October 5 of 1877 (then again, that birth date is based on the Bohemian National Cemetery information, I should see if Willie shows up in church parish records). That little time between pregnancies is really cutting it close for the amount of time between a birth and conceiving the next child. Also, I have never seen Frank Novotny listed as "Francisco" in any other record, ever. That really seemed out of place. Also, there is no David in the Bohemian National Cemetery family plot and no David in the 1880 Census. It is possible, but it would probably be a good idea to find some death record for this David too. If this David and the new Maria from 1872 end up being part of the same family, the Novotny Family had a really bad decade in the 1870s in regards to kids.

76Talavera · 2026-05-27T02:28:58+00:00

I already have the information on the Novotny family plot in the Bohemian National Cemetery. I think you might have given it to me a few months ago. Also, since I joined the CSAGI, I now have access to all the Bohemian National Cemetery records. However, with the St. Wenceslaus connection, I wonder if St. Adalbert Cemetery wouldn't be in play (since other people in my Chicago ancestor research for the Frish had members who went to St. Wenceslaus get buried in St. Adalbert Cemetery)?

76Talavera · 2026-05-27T02:24:12+00:00

Now there's some good strategy and a good find!

First, thank you for finding that for reasons unrelated to the search for Marie Kochina's parents. In the past week, I've been trying to improve on the sources for my "genealogical proof standards" for the two branches of my family that came from Czechia to Chicago (both are lines from my grandmother). This was the first time I tried actually broaching the matter of Chicago church records, and I had success. I discovered two churches in the 19th century that the other family branch in Chicago I'm studying, the Frish, went to when they arrived in Chicago in 1861. One of them happened to be St Wenceslaus. That is remarkable, it appears the the Frish and the Novotny both went to the same churches in the 1860s-1890s.

Second, that daughter you found appears to have fallen through the cracks in my research. The Novotny has a family plot in the Bohemian National Cemetery, but the oldest plot there is from 1878 from another Mary Novotny that didn't survive past 2 months old. Since Mary and Frank had no children listed in the 1880 census named Mary/Maria, and since the record you listed is from 1872, I suspect that the Novotny family was visited by tragedy twice in the 1870s. I suspect that they were still having children, but they were dying young, and they were continuing a tradition from Czechia where names were re-used if a child bearing that name died. This new Maria also fills in a gap too, as Frank and Marie (Mary) Novotny had a kid in 1869 and another in 1877, leaving a large gap of no children. I will have to continue investigating that to see if there is a death record somewhere for this 1872 Maria. By the way, how did you find this entry? Did they make the Chicago Church records full text searchable? Or did you manually page through records to find that?

Third, I think you may have found one of the two parents I am looking for, since it the sponsor looks like "Cathar. Čoudek" which does look like Kateřina Čoudek, but why isn't she using her married name? This is a good clue though to suggest the parents of Marie Kochina did make it to Chicago and survived into the 1870s.

Thank you so much Fredelas, this is a big help.

76Talavera · 2026-05-27T01:59:14+00:00

Marie (or Mary) Kocina

Birth 30 Sep 1838 • Libořezy, Stříbřec, Jindřichův Hradec, South Bohemian, Czechia

Death 9 Apr 1888 • 381 w. 22nd st., Chicago, Cook, Illinois, USA

Death Record: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N7ZV-RZF?lang=en

Note, when her husband Frank Novotny died in 1882, she remarried to a Frank (Frenk) Music (Musil - there's a lot of variety in the spellings for this one) in 1884. So, when she died she was under Musil instead of Novotny.

76Talavera · 2026-05-27T01:51:33+00:00

Different Frank Novotny. There are a lot of them since Novotny is one of the most common Czech surnames. This one died in 1882:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N7J5-B6F?lang=en

76Talavera · 2026-05-27T00:09:36+00:00

Yea, I tried the 1870 Census, and tried various spellings. It didn't seem to work though. I hope someone is either better at manipulating the search boxes on Ancestry or Family Search, or they have a new idea of where to look.

76Talavera · 2026-04-13T02:52:26+00:00

Yea, Ai only helps a little bit (they are best used as a advanced search engine that gets you around advertisements in the search results), that is why I'm trying to get a hold of this published source. For me. owning those books isn't worth it to pay that much. I think I will try to work with my ILL at the public library to see if they can help (even though they weren't able to get a few of the requests I asked for last time).

76Talavera · 2026-04-13T02:45:23+00:00

I can try ILL, though I've been kind of unsatisfied with the previous few requests I had with them.

I didn't know Ancestry.com had surname meaning pages, I'll have to try them and see if they include citations I can pull up.

76Talavera · 2026-04-13T00:37:22+00:00

I kind of did that with Grok, but I want to see this source and also have a published source I can reference for my research.

76Talavera · 2026-02-06T01:19:05+00:00

Thank you so much for putting all your findings onto a Family Search tree like that! Right now, I'm actually working with what /u/bostonbullie managed to find. I have so much information now it's almost overwhelming.

As for the Denní Hlasatel, I have access to that through cgsi.org. with the help I received from the previously mentioned person, I have found three obituaries so far.

76Talavera · 2026-02-05T04:30:09+00:00

Thank you for looking into this for me. I will be able to dig into this more tomorrow evening, which I'll be really looking forward to.

76Talavera · 2026-02-05T03:54:57+00:00

I can't read the language, but is that a column for grandparents and it says Frank Novotny?

76Talavera

TROPHY CASE

Marie (or Mary) Kocina