Carolyn, yours is the first supposition regarding inconsistencies in census data of its kind I've read but it sounds complete plausible and very likely. Certainly as good an explanation as any. I've encountered incorrect info in census data but in areas like Florida where there are no hills to climb but perhaps the same methodology was applied to data collection in those cases to prevent them from having to take extra effort to ride to the next farm. I've noted discussions concerning the "purity" and accuracy of data in family trees and correcting info posted on Ancestry@com and your theory on the efficacy and ethics of early census workers further demonstrates that faith in any record, be it primary, secondary or tertiary is false. All it takes is an unspoken affair or unrecorded out-of-wedlock birth and all the rock-solid research becomes as much a fairy tale as anything the Sobieski brothers could invent.
Regards,
Lance Peterson
________________________________
Date: Fri, 21 May 2010 14:12:30 -0700
From: KAREN DALE <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Census takers of old
My theory is that they were offered a little refreshment at each =
stop--and by the end of the day were so snockered nothing mattered.=20
----- Original Message -----=20
From: Carolyn M. Getting<mailto:[log in to unmask]>=20
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>=20
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 11:27 AM
Subject: Re: [VA-ROOTS] Census takers of old
With this year being a census year, the census takers of old come to =
mind. They went over hill and
dale to get their information. Some of the incorrect years of birth =
I've run into, I've come up
with at least one scenario of how they could have happened as well as =
incorrect names and family
members being left out.
You're a census taker and you've had a long day. You need to complete =
a certain area of the
countryside and that last family lives up a tall hill across a valley =
from where you are.=20
You ask their nearest neighbor whom you've just finished getting =
information from, about the family.
Yes, they know the family well. They names are, such & such, he owns =
his own land and is a farmer.
They have X number of kids. All the time the census taker is writing =
down this info so he doesn't
have to go up the hill. The census taker asks the name of the kids =
and their ages and writes down
that information. He get the ages of the parents and where they were =
all born. =20
Now in the earlier census years they did not require as much =
information as they do now or have done
in certain years. So in 1850 he would have been finished with that =
family up the hill or so he
thought.
Sometimes when I've found information that was incorrect such as age, =
names and places they were
born and or information on the parents of the named person in the =
census, I can also imagine that at
times the information came from a member of the family that didn't =
know or remember, and perhaps
this was actually true of the named person not remembering.
Also, have you not every written down something different that what =
you were told, because you heard
it a certain way? It's kinda like misspeaking. There were probably =
cases of incorrect information
given in order to hide from officials.
Records and record keeping is very interesting to say the least, and =
we're not even addressing the
strange penmanship of some of the record keepers. Then with =
typewriters we have the typos.
So it is, and we go on loving the challenge, to find that elusive =
ancestor, like hunting of treasure
and because they were people and they mattered.
God bless.
Carolyn,
just an old Texas Gal.
Life is like pouring water into a Coke bottle. If you're the least bit =
scared, you can't do it.
Researching:
Knight/Byles/Walton/Espy/Smith/Little/Marshall/
Waters/Garner/Martin/Foote/Berryman/Colclough/
Rogers/Grigsby/Blanton/Tate/McGuffey/Hobbs/
Schuenemann/Latinsky/Altman/Gambel/Sinz & Gross
WebSite: =
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cgetting/<http://freepages.genea=
logy.rootsweb.com/~cgetting/>
WebSite:
=
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cgetting/familygroups/<http://fr=
eepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cgetting/familygroups/>
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the =
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