Rethinking Census Records

We just had a great family reunion. Our common ancestor was born in 1814, so it is pretty much oriented towards family history. We've met for about 10 years now, and established some pretty special cousin relationships in addition to working together on our Lewis ancestry---and descendency.

One cousin, Lyn, had just returned from a BYU Family History Workshop. Her favorite class was aimed at helping researchers get more out of the census records. Lyn's tips: (Along with some tips from another cousin).

Cousin Aletta wrote several years ago: "Families often moved together when settling new areas. It was if they travelled with a ready made community that they would transplant to a new area. Spometimes a family or two would settle in a new area, then communicate with the other families, urging them to come. Once the families start intermarrying, the bonds would become even stronger".

Lyn's tips are based on this observation. Most of us know that when you are searching a census record, you should look a couple of pages before and after your family's listing. You will most likely find other related families in your search. Lyn said that the instructor had come across a land plat showing a map of the landowners in the area where her family lived. It was drawn about the same time as the federal census. The instructor looked at the dates at the top of the census page and made a note of the families who were enumerated on the same day. She then compared that list to the land plat. She discovered that the census taker had basically gone down one side of the road and then several days later, turned back and enumerated the other side of the road. Relatives living across the street were listed in the census twenty six pages after the first family. If you don't want to spend the time necessary to read the whole census for that town or district, at least do a search in the database for family members who might be in the area.

The instructor noticed a family living next door to her ancestors. The wife was born in the same state as her ancestors. Searching proved the wife to be a sister. Cousin Aletta already knew this principle. I had searched the 1860 Census and found my great great grandpa Dave Lewis and his father, Lemuel listed next to each other. End of story. Aletta sent me copies of her research. She had recognized that Lydia Canoy who lived on the other side of Lemuel was his daughter. Her given name, birthplace, and age helped uncover her identity. It also opened up a new descendancy line which was pretty exciting.

Another find. The instructor had come to a dead end on her family research. She was looking at a census and noticed that a neighboring but unrelated family came from the same state as her family. She did a quick search on that family and was able to find them in an earlier census. Sure enough, a few houses down she discovered her family. There had been a problem with the indexing which kept them from showing up in her ancestry.com search. You just never know.