Have you found that ages were way off in the 1870 census?

Question

I have...and I have found it to be consistently this census year no matter what part of the family or where they moved. Most of my missing ancestors, found in 1860 and 1880, are missing in 1870. I have an entire branch of my family that I swear moved back to Canada for a few years, yet I have proof they were getting their mail in Ogdensburg, NY!

Any theories? I think after the War closed people were very suspicious of the government. I find that people in my family also used middle names for everyone, as if to avoid identification. In 1930, my grandfather was listed by his second middle name, Norman!

TTpawpaw - I have my ggg grandfather's pension file and in it are letters addressed to him for May-Sep 1870 (during the census) at Ogdensburg, NY, that he signed for continously. So if he was back in Canada, he'd had to have come over often to get his mail! The signature matches his other documents.
Also, he was married in Feb 1871 there. He also had a wooden leg and was the town drunk and fequently in the lockup according to the Ogdensburg Newspapers for that year. There is documented evidence he lived there. I believe he lived there and just used a different name so i haven't found him in 1870.

The family name was St. Onge. They also went by Santaus, Sherwood, and even Batts, which I thinks was "Baptiste."

Genealogy is screwy.

As for the 1930 census, I know that was years ahead but I was just pointing out something that I see every census in my family.

Shirley - I know sometimes neighbors gave info, and if a house was over a mountain in the snow they often didn't even enumerate it.

Everyone thinks people these days move around often when in reality our ancestors moved all the time, across several states and back. Frustrating!

Answer 1

You habe made a very defined actuation but you are basing it on a very narrow search. To the best informatiion I can find everything about my family looks good. It is very possible that the things you noticed did happen,after all there were no computers back then. That is why the census was only every 10 yrs.

How can you prove that a family moved but still recieved mail. Also how big is a branch of a family. Maybe the mail was forwarded. If they moved back to Canada then it would make sence that they were missing from the 1870. Finally what does one listing in 1930 have anything to do with 1870? There were a lot of people who were known by their middle name. If that is the name you give somebody, then that is the name they know you by.pp

Answer 2

Teresa, you have to understand something about censuses. They were trying to get a nose count and to gather certain data which was different in each census. The census taker had no earthy idea that people would be pouring over those censuses 100 to 150 years down the line trying to find their family history.

It can be the census taker and who gave the information. Sometime they might have gotten the information from a neighbor. Also frequently they put the information down on a pad and when they got home they transcribe it to the census forms. Sometimes the census taker had the pad against the romp of a mule while the farmer was plowing. You have to take into consideration what one person says and the other person hears might be something different, particularly if several people were trying to put their 2 cents worth in.

I have a family line none of us have been able to find in 1860. We have them in 1850
Laurens County, SC. We know they moved to North Carolina as two sons were born there one in 1852 and the other in 1854. However, they are not on the NC or SC censues for 1860. We know from letters and other info they did not leave NC until after the Civl War. They show up on the Jackson County Missouri census in 1870.
Then in 1880 they were in Washington County, Texas. I would imagine if a family was in between moves they got overlooked.

Also I can see how they might show up on more than one census. My grandmother did in 1880. She was censused with her parents and then when the census taker got to her grandparents house she was visiting them and was picked up as a member of their household. However, the census shows her as their niece. What we figure is that since her grandparents were living next door to her newly married aunt and uncle, they gave the information. When the census taker asked for her relationship,her uncle thought he meant to them not his parents.

My father was born January 21, 1907. Now, I understand when they put your age down, they are suppose to use the age you will be on your nearest birthday, not your last birthday. They have him as 14 on the 1920 census which was taken in January. Actually, the form has the census taken 6 days before his 13th birthday. I remember all to well how my grandmother talked. She would have been telling the census taker, "he is 13; he has a birthday in 6 days." She would not say you just as well say he is 13. However, the census taker thought she meant he had already had his 13th birthday and would be 14 in 6 days.

My paternal grandfather lost his father when he was a small boy and his mother remarried a Conner. On the 1900 census of Gonzales County, Texas it shows James R Conner head of the household and the oldest son was listed as just Roy T. A person would assume he was Roy T. Conner.

On the 1880 census of Travis County, Texas my maternal grandfather was 3 years old. It shows he had a one year old brother named Emanuel. None of us had ever heard of Emanuel. Then we realized Emma wasn't listed. Even if the census taker saw Emma that wouldn't mean very much as until the 1950s, people put dresses on little boys until they were potty trained (made good sense in the days of cloth diapers). Someone said "but the girls were frillier." I stated around the house she was probably wearing one of my grandfather's hand-me-downs.

Answer 3

I'd say that inconsistencies like this are standard. My advice is to always use as many different sources as you can..which it seems you already are doing.
Seriously.. the census is erratic as a norm. Not impossible that the family simply did NOT want to respond. Another option is that the name is so mangled that it is overlooked. I am fairly good, yet many times, persons have found my line, when I swear I looked at every page and they were not there. I have gone through many counties on film, and I mean, line by blurry line.
You should see one of my lines, where 3 of 5 brothers died during the CW in Mississippi, and a wife as well from illness. The kids were farmed out all over the place.
glad you posted a question, so I could say it is very cool to see someone who has been researching since they were a kid.

Answer 4

Wow! inform you what: i'm in my 60s and that i have, so some distance in existence, been blanketed in precisely 2 censuses. Liberals declare that censuses are finished and precise, yet when actuality, they are neither finished nor precise. searching for ancestors in a census is functional in basic terms to the point of CONFIRMING what you comprehend. after I got here around the census record for my Dad's large grandfather, there change into actually no longer some thing contained in the record to point that he change into, certainly, my Dad's large grandfather. even as there are 1000's, even thousands, of persons in the course of the rustic with a similar call and a similar approximate existence span, you want much better than a census record to substantiate ancestry. finally, maximum of my ancestors (those that were no longer born/died before the U.S. censuses began) are not any more listed contained in the censuses. so some distance in my searches, they are the least precise or sturdy source.

Answer 5

I find the ages off my 1 - 3 pretty consistently; by 5 once in a while (usually when someone puts the same age for two children in a row, by mistake; Jeff, 10 becomes twins with his sister, Jenny, who should be 5, for one census.)

Unmarried women tend to get younger as they age. I found a couple that were off by 10 years, but it was in Arkansas and the handwriting was atrocious. I assumed the enumerator subtracted wrong.

I find people switching back and forth between first and middle names constantly. In Texas they use their initials more than they use their names, it seems, and sometimes THEY get transposed, so James Wesley Smith becomes W J Smith, and you, poor, innocent, and trusting, spend hours looking for J W.

The most common middle name reason I've found was when the father and son had the same name, junior gets called by his middle name.

Answer 6

Yes, I have found dates and ages to be off. That is why I always want to make sure the correct data is being inputted into my documents. Like my grandfather, his name is Walter Jones, Sr., when I look him up a slew of Walter Jones' come up. I believe they pick anybody to do the census. People are not being taught the importance of reading and writing as in the old days.

Answer 7

I personally think that the census takers all had drinking problems. They totally botched people's names - I mean there not even close. In my dad's family the women clearly lied about their age and in some years I think the family hid out in the barn when the census takers came by. Just my opinion.