Find Ancestors Hiding in the Census
Can’t find your ancestor in the US census? You’re not alone. Our success strategies help you overcome seven common scenarios for missing ancestors.
1. Tricky transcription errors
2. Unexpected name changes
3. Age discrepancies
For example, here’s how I matched—more or less—my fourth-great-grandmother Martha Williams and her family in the 1810 census in Nash County, NC:
- two males under age 10: Jack; age 6, Nestor, 9 or 10
- two males ages 10 to 15: Solomon, about 13; Nicholas, about 15
- one female under 10: Elizabeth, 5
- one female age 10 to 15: Nancy, 12
- one female age 16 to 25: Frances, 17
- one female age 26 to 44: Martha, 32, a widow after her husband died in 1807, named as head of the household
It helps to make an age chart for your pre-1850 ancestors, or use a blank form to note what the household should look like. Then search census records with the head-of-household’s name and the numbers of people who should fall into each age category. Don’t freak out if not every person in the household matches a known family member; again, these could be other relatives or boarders.
4. Geographic wrong turns
5. Untimely deaths
Fortunately for genealogists, in 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880, the federal census included questions about persons who had died in the year immediately preceding the enumeration. Many of the surviving Mortality Schedules are indexed and searchable on Ancestry.com. Data varied from census to census, but in general, the questions covered:
- name
- age at last birthday
- sex
- race
- marital status
- profession, occupation or trade
- state, territory or country of birth of person and parents
- length of residence in county
- month in which person died
- disease or cause of death
- place where disease contracted (if not at place of death)
- name of attending physician
6. Too many hits
7. Missing or damaged pages
One-Click Census Search
You might be familiar with Stephen P. Morse’s One-Step Webpages and the site’s powerful tools for drilling down into passenger records in databases such as Ellis Island arrivals.
If you have a street address where an ancestor might be hiding, the One-Step site can also help you translate that into the corresponding enumeration district (ED). Again, make sure to pick the census you want; the default option is 1940.
More Online
Making Sense of Pre-1850s Censuses on-demand webinar
Avoiding Mistaken Identities download
Using Cluster and Collateral Searches to Beat Brick Walls on-demand webinar
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