A Study in Census

Census records are probably my favorite type of record because of the assortment and wealth of information that they can provide.  Of course like all records, census records aren't perfect.  The information on the census was enumerated by people going around the country to each and every house and writing down the information.  This is not a perfect method for a couple reasons:

1. What if they miss someone? Can (and has) happened
2. Usually one member of the household relays the information to the enumerator. (This is usually indicated by some sort of mark next to their name) I don't know about you, but my dad has a hard time remembering my name.  I've been called "ErBryJaKylie" more times than I can count.  (Kidding, sort of.  Love you dad :) ) So there are bound to be errors depending on which member of the family reported the data. Birth dates and ages change by a couple years, names change from first name to middle name to nickname, even birthplace changes.  
3. Not only is the person who is reporting the information human, the person writing down the information is human.  They write it as they hear it.  Accents can make this fun, especially in the south, where my family is primarily from.  Let's take my ancestor Salathiel as an example.  In addition to Salathiel, I've found records listing him as: Thile; Thyer; Theo; Theal; Thyre; Thiel... The list goes on.  

Just because the census was taken by the federal government does not make it an official document as far as name spellings, ages, etc. are concerned.

Now let's use an example to see what kind of information we can find just off the census.  My lovely cousin Becky suggested Edith Wimbish Powell, a relative of ours and a second mother to her.  Edith passed away in 1960 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, along with her husband, a marine who served in World War I.

The first step is to find her date of birth, so that we can find which census she would first appear on.  This will hopefully give us the name of her parents.

Here is her interment record for Arlington National Cemetery.  It gives us a ton of information (husband's name, husband's military service, address at date of death...) but as this is a study in census, we are mostly concerned with the birth date: December 11, 1892.  This means that the first census she would appear on is the 1900 and she would be 7-8 years old, most likely living with her parents.  

So....

Here we are.

The family appears down near the bottom of the page.

There, on line 40, is our Edith.  She's 7 years old, born Dec 1893.  (See? Not perfect)

Let's look at the type of information this census gives us.  

Column 4: relationship to the head of the house hold.  Edith is the daughter.  Columns 5 and 6, race and sex.  White and Female.  Columns 7 and 8 provide the birth date and age information.  Columns 9 though 12 aren't really applicable to our Edith - they ask if the individual is married, for how many years, and how many children the individual has.  Columns 13, 14, and 15 tell us the place of birth, place of birth of Father, and place of birth for Mother, respectively.  Edith and both of her parents were born in Virginia.  16-28 don't apply to Edith, but do to her father, Eppy.  19 - Occupation: Eppy was a farmer.  He can read and write (columns 22 and 23), Owns his home (25) free (26) and it is a farm (27) with 191 acres (28).

Also listed on the census are her parents, Eppy and Celeste, and siblings, Florille, Kathleen,  Eppie Y (Younger?), Aida, Willie, and Sandy.  Now here is something interesting - on line 44: Rebecca Wimbish.  Thank goodness for listing the relationship - this is the head of the household's mother, Edith's paternal grandmother.  

We know the name of Rebecca Wimbish, Edith's grandmother.  We know that Eppy was born in 1869.  Putting those two pieces of information together, if we look for Rebecca in the 1870 census, we should find her with her husband and son, Eppy.

And here they are:

[William Wimbish, Edith's paternal grandfather, is at the bottom of the first page, and then the family continues onto the second.  Members of the household: William (41), Rebecca (37), Ada (15), William (13), Eppy (11), Edward (10), Elisha (8), Louis (6), Jon (2) and Rebecca Barksdale (69).  Because this last individual has a different last name and is the age to be a mother of one of the parents, we can make an educated guess that Barksdale is the maiden name of Rebecca Wimbish. This is only a guess - with more research, this was proved wrong.]

More proof that censuses, while great, aren't perfect: according to the 1900 census, Eppy Wimbish was born in 1869, so we anticipate him to be 1 year old on the 1870 census.  He is actually 11 on the 1870 census.  So somewhere someone got their information wrong - probably the 1900 census taker.

Now, according to the 1900 census, Rebecca Wimbish was born in 1834.  She would then first appear on the 1840 census.  So why didn't we go there to find her with her parents? A. We would need to know her maiden name to find her with her parents and  B. up until 1850, the censuses were enumerated with head of the household's name only, with numbers indicating the ages of the other members of the house.  

So there we have it.  There is an, albeit incomplete, glance at Edith Wimbish, her parents, and paternal grandparents, using only the census.  

See why I love censuses?