[or-roots] Ornery Ancestors

[Barbara Wulf]

One other thing to think about with census records.  The image we see is the third rendition [and the guy who wrote it was hired for his handwriting].

The census taker, [he had a horse], wrote the information onto the forms.  His copy went to the county.  The county copied over the census and sent that to the state.  The state copied over the census and sent it to the feds.  The microfilm copy we see is the feds copy.  

SOMETIMES the original still exists with the county.  

Barb
wulf at bendcable.com
http://home.bendcable.com/wulf/Project/siteMapNoImage.htm

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: CKlooster at aol.com 
  To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us 
  Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2004 8:26 AM
  Subject: Re: [or-roots] Ornery Ancestors


  Les, you make a good point about census data.  I have always considered it to be collaborative for the following reasons:

    The census takers themselves varied so greatly in their education (as evidenced by spelling, handwriting, etc.) and also in how precisely they recorded data.  You'll notice in the 1880 census for the French and other related families that the census taker carefully calculated the Indian blood quantum for those of mixed blood showing "1/4 Indian; 3/4 White".  Some census takers under "Race" wrote "Mixed" or "Breed" (as in "half-breed").

    Also, the information for the whole family was given by whomever was at home at the time the census-taker called, sometimes an older child to whom the birthplace of mom and dad might be a bit hazy...as might be their ages.  I've always made it a mental "rule-of-thumb" to be less skeptical of the ages of children in the census records because there is less room for error...a three-year-old doesn't look like a ten-year-old.

    I read a letter written by an Indiana census-taker in the late 1800's who recorded the data given to him on scratch paper then sat down each night and carefully filled out the census forms so that they would display his very best penmanship.  I don't know how common that practice was, but it is obvious that numbers could be transposed and errors made in the copying.  I had visions of this man laboring over the census forms late into the night by kerosene lamp...and anyone who has used kerosene lamps as a light source knows what a strain that is on eyes and concentration.

    Then, of course, there is the deliberate misinformation as you mention.  Sometimes there was a reason for deceiving the census-takers...an attempt to hide an identity, for example.  One factor that I've come across several times in the 1800's is what appears to be a deliberate deception about place of birth; individuals born in Canada or some other country stating that they were born in the U.S.  In one instance, this seems to have been because the individual had filed a mining claim and he had to be a U.S. citizen to do that.  Donation land claims may have been another reason to claim U.S. birth, or even voting.  

  If I find consistent data in several census records, or if the census record is consistent with other records, I feel that it adds to the body of documentation supporting a fact or facts.  I love the online census because it provides valuable clues...neighboring households, with the wives of each household having a father born in New Brunswick.  Are they sisters?  Possibly.  So I start digging for further information.  Finding great-great-grandpa is relatively easy.  Finding great-great-grandmother's sister is really hard since women's identify (i.e. family name) disappeared when she married.  The census sometimes helps in that area.

  Carla
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