Where in the World is Sarah Riddner (in 1910)?

She should be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her mother.  She was only 2 at the time of the 1910 federal population census.

This family has been most elusive in the 1910 census.  Over the years I have tried every variation on the spelling of the last name that I can think of.  Finally, in the past year, I had some successes.

I know that her father (Ben Riddner) and her mother (Pearl Scheier Riddner) were in Milwaukee by about 1904 and married there in 1905.  I have copies of the application for the license (which gave their parents’ names – hurrah!) and the registration of the marriage.  I have a copy of Sarah’s birth certificate – she was born in Milwaukee in 1908.  There is no reason to think that the family would be anywhere else.  Except they don’t show up where I expected them to be.  And, except that the family story is that Ben left them and divorced Pearl, at some point, and moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Not clear when.

Then, having looked at everything (I thought), I went back and checked Ben’s name at ancestry.com again and – what do you know?! – a new database of crossings into the US from Canada.  And it turns out that Ben had been in Canada since sometime in 1908 until Dec. 1910.  So, no wonder I couldn’t find him in the census.  But what about his wife and child?

I started looking for Scheiers in the census.  I knew that there were Scheier relatives in Wisconsin in about the same time period.  I thought that a couple of them were brothers of Pearl, although I haven’t had evidence of that (beyond Sarah in later life calling them Uncle Doc and Uncle Louis).  I looked and looked for either of these in the 1910 census.  They, too, should be there and most likely in Wisconsin.  Eventually, and just recently, I finally found Abe (later Dr. Abe) under the name Abe Sheer (at least that is how it was indexed).  And, surprise!, when I looked at the image, he was living with his mother, Susie Sheir (Zissel or Zietle Scheier) and two sisters: Ida Sheer and Pearl Viddne (a misspelling of Riddner I never thought of).  A bonus.  I have some evidence that Abe and Pearl were brother and sister.  And found another sister.

But I still have missing Scheiers, and now I also have a mystery.  Pearl was still married at that point.  And she had a 2 year old daughter, who was not enumerated in the same household.  Why not?  Was Sarah living somewhere else at the time?  Why would she have been?  The remaining person I know about in this family, Louis Scheier, is still among the missing in the 1910 census.  The line for Susie or Zietle also shows that she had 9 children, 8 of whom were still living in 1910.  So I’m looking for at least 3 more Scheiers, somewhere in the world.  I have just finished going through the pages for the Ward and District that these Scheiers were in, page by page.  No Louis and no Sarah.  I tried looking at Heritage Quest briefly today, and still no Louis or Sarah.  So I have my work cut out for me.  Any suggestions are welcome as I make finding these two a goal for 2010.