Why You Shouldn’t Believe Everything You Read

I love census records.

I also argue with them regularly.

If you’ve been researching your family for any length of time, you’ve probably found an ancestor who aged twelve years between censuses, changed their birthplace, or suddenly had a mother who was born in an entirely different country.

Before you decide you have the wrong family, remember that we often don’t know who answered the census taker’s questions.

It could have been your ancestor. It could have been his wife. It could have been an older child. In some cases, someone else may have provided the information.

So before you carve that 1826 birth year in stone, it’s worth seeing what the other records have to say.

About Those Birth Years

Let’s say Margaret was 32 in 1850.

That puts her birth around 1818.

Ten years later, she’s 45.

Okay. Maybe 1815.

Then we find her in 1870, and she’s 49.

Margaret, we need to talk.

This happens all the time.

Instead of choosing whichever age agrees with the date already in your tree, write down all three.

Then start looking.

Is there a baptismal record? Marriage record? Death certificate? Cemetery record? Obituary? Family Bible? Military record?

Pay attention to when each record was created and who probably supplied the information.

A birth date written in a family Bible by someone’s mother in 1820 deserves different consideration than a birth date supplied on that person’s death certificate by a grandson in 1902.

More records don’t always mean better evidence, either. Five later records can repeat the same wrong information.

Apparently Nobody Knew Where Grandpa Was Born

Birthplaces can be just as entertaining.

One census says Scotland.

The next says Nova Scotia.

Another says Canada.

I’ve run into versions of this more than once in my own research.

Sometimes there is a reasonable explanation. A person may have immigrated when they were very young and grown up believing they were born in one place when they were actually born in another. Geographic descriptions changed. Questions changed from census to census.

And other times somebody simply got it wrong.

That happens.

Don’t change the birthplace in your tree every time you find a new census. Keep track of what each record says and see what else you can find.

Names Are No Better

Our ancestors were not sitting around worrying about how their names would appear on Ancestry 150 years later.

Spelling changed.

Nicknames were used.

Middle names came and went.

Elizabeth became Eliza, Lizzie, or Betsy.

Margaret became Peggie.

McLeod might become MacLeod.

Then you have accents, handwriting, spelling by sound, and whatever the census taker thought he heard.

If you can’t find someone, play with the search.

Try a first name and approximate birth year without the surname. Search for a spouse or child. Try spelling variations.

I’ve found people by searching for everyone except the person I was actually looking for.

Sometimes you have to sneak up on your ancestors.

Don’t Close That Census Yet

You found Grandpa.

Great.

Now ignore him for a minute.

Who lives next door?

Who is three houses away?

Are there people nearby with the same surname?

Is there an older couple who could be parents?

Does someone in the household have a different surname?

Do several nearby families come from the same place?

I used to be much more interested in the household than the neighborhood. The longer I research, the more time I spend looking at both.

Those neighbors have a funny habit of turning up again.

One witnesses a deed.

Another appears in probate papers.

A daughter marries into one of the families.

Ten years later, two of the families have moved to the same county.

Suddenly the people you almost skipped over aren’t so unimportant.

So, Is the Census Wrong?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Sometimes the census is the record that turns out to be right.

I don’t give it the final word because it happens to be the first record I found.

If the ages don’t agree, write them down.

If the birthplace changes, make a note.

If the surname is spelled differently, don’t panic.

And if something looks strange, don’t immediately “fix” it to match your tree.

That odd piece of information may be wrong.

Or it may be the clue you’ve been waiting for.

Either way, it’s worth paying attention to.

Even if Margaret still refuses to tell us how old she really was.