When the 1940 U.S. Census was released, Lee Wolff-Silver eagerly began to search for family members. She quickly found her father, Sidney Wollf, who was living with his parents and a younger sister right where Lee expected to find him, in Richmond Heights, Missouri. She found her father-in-law, Abraham Richard Silver, in Boston, Massachusetts, just where she thought he would be. However, after hours of searching the 1940 census records for her mother and mother-in-law, Lee was baffled. Where were these two ladies?

Lee Wolff-Silver started doing genealogy during a pregnancy, in the 1980s when her doctor suggested genetic testing.  Her husband’s family and her grandfather were from Eastern Europe.  Testing discovered that her husband was a carrier of a genetic disease but she was not. Crisis averted. But that started her journey into genealogy, using an Apple IIc computer and Family Tree Maker. The computer changed over the years, records became more accessible, but her love of the hunt has not changed. After retiring from the Federal Government, Lee has more time to spend on her family tree. Most of her family is from Missouri, which has great online resources.