Regarding Virginia, Don Trent wrote:
>In several 1850 Campbell Co., VA census records, there appears the number 1
in parentheses after a person name. This is always after a name other than
the "head of household" and may be seen on one or more names in that family
unit. What is the enumerator trying to tell us?


Regarding New York, Donal O'Kelly wrote:
>I ran into it on a census containing surname Williamson in the state of New

York.  enumeration John (2) Later it turned out there was a John head of
household and a son John Jr.  head of another family in the same household.
Still I cannot just assume that the (2) means two Johns in the same house.

Donald Moore responded:
>  Buried somewhere in the NARA web site are instructions to census  
  takers for each census year. Perhaps that might shed some light on the  
  notations.



Don and Donal, would you cite the specific households or pages for which you
found these entries?  (The more examples the better.)

As Donald pointed out, census instructions tell us what the enumerators were
*instructed* to do. Most of those instructions for 1850-1950 are online at
http://usa.ipums.org/usa/voliii/tEnumInstr.shtml.

The (1) and (2) notations that Don and Donal have noted are not authorized
notations. If they represent, say, John the First and John the Second, then
they represent yet another aberration, because "(1)" and "(2)" were not
standard ways of writing "first" and "second" in that era. To have entries
written this way by random enumerators in both Virginia and New York would
add coincidence to the aberration. Meanwhile, many markings made on the
censuses were made by clerks in the census office itself---not by the
enumerators.

I'd like to examine the entries, if specific entries can be cited. (I won't
volunteer to read all of Campbell County---or New York state---in search of
those entries :)

Elizabeth

------------------------------------------------------------
Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
Advanced Research Methodology & Evidence Analysis
Samford University Institute of Genealogy & Historical Research

AUTHOR OF:
_Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace_
_QuickSheet: Citing Online Historical Resource, Evidence Style_
_Evidence: Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian_
_Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors,
Lecturers & Librarians_

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