Where's Sam?

I am in the process of researching my family tree. I started this project for my son who is an only child and doesn't have much contact with family since many live elsewhere. I wanted him to have a sense of connection to family even though he may not see them or know them personally.

During this journey of discovery, I found out my son related to George Washington. Yep, THAT George Washington, the father of our country. That was a big shocker. George's mom was a Ball and somewhere in the line a Ball married into the family who eventually migrated South during the Civil War and then West and because of the Crenshaw's and the Haas', my son has a whole slew of family specifically located in Texas.

But now, I'm looking at my father's side of the family. It seems many of the men in the family were transient and left for whatever reason or were lost track of which I find sad. I never knew my grandfather on my dad's side of the family who died in 1971 when I was 5 years old. My dad didn't know his father either. My grandfather was a lifer in the Army until his lack of hearing got in the way of him doing his job and then he was rejected during reenlisting. He was admitted to the U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteered Soldiers twice, in 1933 and 1935. And in reading the intake documents carefully, it seems my grandfather had a brother named Sam who lived in Cicero, Illinois.

So how do you find a man who doesn't want to be found? Like a puzzle, you find the pieces and put them back together paying attention to the clues that this type of research gives you.

The first thing I did when I found Sam's address was Google it. I wanted to see where this man lived or even if the house existed anymore. Unfortunately, the address doesn't not exists anymore. It's now a parking lot for a bankrupt grocery store called Delray Farms.

I then matched the address given as a contact, Sam's address, to the 1930's U.S. Census Records. This took some doing because I'm not familiar with the area nor working with census records all that much. I was able to track down an enumeration districts description page on the web which pointed me to the correct block. The address was found to be located in District 2038. The street address was 2308 South Cicero. There were two tenement houses filled with boarders that either worked for the electric works or the railroad which was right near by. Almost the whole neighborhood consisted of these types of housing in 1930. But as luck would have it, Sam didn't live in that specific house in 1930 and probably not for another three years...

Or, there is an alternate idea. I found a Sam Stutz in California. In San Diego County. This Sam Stutz was born in Illinois like my grandfather. This Sam Stutz gained a U.S. patented for a machine that sorted gold from slew. If he were an engineer, that would make sense since many of the Stutz's are big thinking people with highly technical jobs. I'm thinking that maybe my grandfather lost track of his brother and that the address he put down was old and Sam moved on a while ago. That would mean I may have undiscovered blood relatives as close as a two hour drive away I have never met before. It's exciting to think about if you're into genealogy to make a discovery like that. But one step at a time.