Genealogy Research – Census Issues

The US Census is taken every ten years.  While the census results are a rich source of information for doing genealogy research, there are a number of ways that incorrect/misleading information can make it more difficult that one might think.  Unlike the past few times that the census has been taken where forms are mailed to each home for completion, the census forms used to be filled in by hand by a census taker.  Consider the following micro-steps that are involved in capturing this information:

1)      The census form, which is different every time it is given, consists of a large number of columns of information that must be captured for each individual.

2)      The wording of each column must be converted to a full sentence question by the individual who is responsible for filling in the questionnaire, i.e. the census taker.

3)      The census taker knocks on the door and asks the person who answers the door the questions for all members of the household.

4)      The questions are asked in English.

5)      The resident hears the question and has to determine exactly what is being asked.

6)      The resident has to know the answer for each household member.

7)      The resident answers each question.

8)      The census writes down what he/she believed they heard.

Every one of these small steps is prone to a certain amount of error.  Consider the following examples:

A)    If the column is labeled “Age,” the question might be “How old is the person?”  If you have a child who has a birthday in just a few days and is almost 10, you might answer, “10”.  But if the question is “How old were they at their last birthday?”, then you would answer “9”.

B)    If the column is “Number of children” and you had three living children and had had two miscarriages, then you might answer initially “3”, but if the next column is “How many living”, then you would have to answer “3” and correct your previous answer to “5”.

C)    The resident might not have very good English skills, or not very good pronunciation, so the census taker might not record the proper spelling.  (One of my ancestors was Hester Russell and in one census it was recorded “Ester Russel”.  An ancestor with the last name of Kowalski was recorded with four different spelling.

D)    If you give the names of your children, unless you indicate otherwise, the census taker will assume that the last names were the same as yours, but they might not be.  (One of my wife’s ancestors had some children from a prior marriage, but she was widowed and had re-married.  Those children, who had not been officially adopted, were recorded under the last name of their step-father instead of noting their legal last name.)

E)     As time goes by, you might not remember exact dates (one of my wife’s ancestors recorded three different years for her immigration to the US on three consecutive census records.  Another recorded different birth years for her husband on different census records.)

F)     People sometimes go by their nicknames or middle names (especially if they share a first name with a parent).  So the child of Wilhelmina is recorded in the census as “Mina” and Catharine Elizabeth Russell is listed in some census records as “Catharine” and in others as “Elizabeth”.

G)    The census taker might make improper assumptions.  When one of my Russell ancestors had their granddaughter staying with them for the summer (which was the time of the year when the census taker paid a visit), her name was given as “Catharine Simmons”, but the census taker assumed that Simmons was a middle name and so indented the recording, improperly causing her to be listed as “Russell, Catharine Simmons”.

H)    Sometimes the resident being asked the questions might not know the answer, or might assume something that is not correct.  So they might incorrectly indicate that their spouse’s parents were born in the same state as their spouse, but that might not be correct.

All the above are real examples of some of the incorrect recording that I have encountered just in researching my and my wife’s relatives.  In searching for census records sometimes you have to use “fuzzy logic” since exact, correct answers might not have been recorded.

Other Information Issues

There are a host of other information sources beyond the census records.  While some of the same issues such as misheard information exist in these other sources, there are other problems as well.

Inconsistency between states – some states, like Massachusetts, had a fairly rigorous recording for births, marriages, deaths, etc.  But just across the border in upstate New York the methods were less rigorous and so finding information about individuals is much harder.

In-state census – New York actually took a census every five years, so for years like 1865, there is a New York census, but surrounding states only participated in the federal census.