Wednesday, November 16, 2011

1790 Census, Part II

The first U.S. Census was approved by the Senate and House of Representatives on March 1, 1790, and assigned to 17 marshals of the new nation’s several judicial districts, plus their estimated 650 assistant marshals. 1 

 
The states had been united as a country for such a short time that people had little grasp that “Federal authority should be unquestioned and instructions promptly and fully obeyed.”1 Congress gave the states nine months to count the country’s inhabitants. However, the census actually took 18 months to complete.

 
Where We Counted 
If you think the inhabitants of the 13 original colonies were the only ones counted in the first U.S. Census, you’re close, but no cigar. The states and territories represented by the first U.S. Census were:1
·         Connecticut
·         Delaware
·         Georgia (included what is now Alabama and Mississippi)
·         Maryland
·         Massachusetts (included what is now Maine)
·         New Hampshire
·         New Jersey
·         New York
·         North Carolina (included what is now Tennessee, which was soon to be
      organized as the Southwest Territory)
·         Pennsylvania
·         Rhode Island
·         South Carolina
·         Vermont
·         Virginia (included what is now Kentucky)
·         Northwest Territory (included present states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
      Michigan, and Wisconsin, as well as parts of Minnesota)

Where were your ancestors living in 1790?

Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.
For more information on my Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com
and click on Family History Research.
1The U.S. Census Bureau website:  http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1790.html

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

1790 Federal Census, Part I


Exploring the 1790 Census can be a very frustrating process for family history researchers. Only heads of households were named in the first U.S. Census; additional household members were categorized simply by gender, age, and whether free or slave. If the ancestor you are searching for was a child, a spouse, indentured servant or slave at the time, he or she is counted but not named.  It can make validating that you have found the correct family more difficult.

While family history researchers would appreciate the same amount of information available in later censuses, it’s important to keep in mind why the census came into being in the first place. In Article I, Section 2, the U.S. Constitution directed that a Federal Census be taken every 10 years as a method to determine the number of Representatives allotted each state based on a state’s population (“The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative …”).

A Steep Learning Curve for Both the Government and the People
Some states had conducted censuses prior to this; however, the U.S. government had no experience in preparing for or conducting a census on a national level. For example, standard, consistent census forms were not furnished by the government; those charged with taking the census provided their own. 

“Indeed, up to and including 1820, the assistant general marshals generally used for the schedules such paper as they happened to have, ruling it, writing in the headings, and binding the sheets together themselves. In some cases merchants’ account paper was used, and now and then the schedules were bound in wall paper.

“As a consequence of requiring marshals to supply their own blanks, the volumes containing the schedules vary in size from 7 inches long, 3 inches wide and ½ inch thick to 21 inches long, 14 inches wide and 6 inches thick. Some of the sheets in these volumes are only 4 inches long, but a few are 3 feet in length, necessitating several folds.”1

The people, also generally unfamiliar “with census taking, imagined that some scheme for increasing taxation was involved, and were inclined to be cautious lest they should reveal too much of their own affairs. There was also enumeration opposition on religious grounds, a count of inhabitants being regarded by many as a cause for divine displeasure. The boundaries of towns and other minor divisions, and even those of counties, were in many cases unknown or not defined at all.”1

The 1790 Census was the original U.S. Census. What was the first U.S. Census that your ancestors were listed in?

Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com

For more information on my Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com and click on Family History Research.

1The U.S. Census Bureau website:  
http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1790.html

Friday, October 14, 2011

October is National Family History and Fire Prevention Month

October is National Family History and Fire Prevention month, two themes that run through my historical fiction book, “The Memory Quilt.” The book follows the experiences of a 14-year-old girl on the day of the Cloquet/Moose Lake fire, October 12, 1918.
The story is loosely based on my maternal grandmother’s family and their experiences during the fire. The family of seven survived by lying in the bottom of a shallow gravel pit they had dug to make the foundation of their new barn, while covering themselves with wet blankets and rugs.
Doing the research for “The Memory Quilt” is what first got me interested in family history research. There was so much I didn’t know about the fire or my dad’s family history when I started. Once you begin looking, it gets in your blood and you want to find out more and more.
What will it take to get you interested in your family’s history?  For those of you who find research tedious and time-consuming and don’t want to spend the money to buy a subscription to Ancestry.com or one of the other pay-subscription databases, I will be happy to do the document searches for you:
Census records
 
  Birth records
 
Death certificates
 
Obits
 
Grave site photos
 
Ship passenger lists
 
Marriage records
 
Declarations of Intent/Naturalization records
Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.
For more information on my Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com
and click on Family History Research.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

As a family history researcher, I have seen many people checking death certificates at the Minnesota History Center to see what an ancestor died from.  They want to know if heart disease, dementia or a number of other diseases run in their family.
Due to the large number of articles and news programs on women whose sisters, mothers and grandmothers all had breast cancer, I was very surprised to learn that only an estimated 5 percent to 10 percent of all breast cancers are hereditary.1 That means 90 percent or more of women who get breast cancer will not have any history of the disease in their family. In other words, checking your ancestors’ death certificates to see if anyone in your family has had breast cancer is no indication of your risk.
If you or a friend or loved one hasn’t gotten a mammogram in over a year, get one as soon as possible. If you’re over 50, talk with your doctor before you decide to follow or ignore the advice offered by The United States Preventive Services Task Force’s (USPSTF2) to get a mammogram every two years. If you want to continue to get one every year, do it. A yearly mammogram could save your life. It saved mine.
Knowing about your family’s health history is important. Knowing about your own health is critical.
Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.
For more information on Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com
and click on Family History Research.
2The USPSTF is an independent panel of non-Federal experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine and is composed of primary care providers (such as internists, pediatricians, family physicians, gynecologists/obstetricians, nurses, and health behavior specialists).   http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/uspstfix.htm

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Be Prepared to be Mortified

Once you commit to finding information about your family history, be prepared for information that may surprise, mystify and yes, even mortify you. For example:
·    You learn a child was born less than four months after a recorded marriage OR you uncover the birth of a child (or children) prior to a marriage.
·    You find a relative listed in a census as a patient in an insane asylum OR based on death records, you discover that an ancestor’s death was actually a suicide.
·    Your soldier ancestor was listed as missing or dead after a particular battle and you discover he lived, but never came home to his family; instead, he started a new family in another state.
There are so many family stories out there, waiting to be uncovered, and not all of them will be positive. Many of these stories may already be part of family lore; many may have been kept a closely guarded secret for generations. What’s your family’s secret story?
Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.
For more information on Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com and click on Family History Research.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Be Prepared to be Mystified


In addition to surprises, once you begin researching your family history you will encounter at least one mystery, maybe more.  For example, there will be periods where an ancestor disappears, and then suddenly reappears. Where did he or she go? Or a census will list a family member as having one name, and the next census will list a person born the same year but with an entirely different name. What’s going on?
The” name” mystery is usually easier to solve than the “where were they?” mystery.  Early census records were compiled by people – census takers – who wrote down the information given to them by the people they were interviewing.  A name could have been misheard or misspelled. In many cultures, people went by their middle names or call names. It’s possible that the first census used his or her more formal first name, and the second census used the middle name or a nickname. 
In the1860 Census, the first census he appeared in, my great-grandfather’s name was listed as Albert. In the next census, he was Augustus, the next  August, then Gust, then plain Gus. Where the heck the Albert came from, I have no idea, and probably never will. Anyone who might know the answer has long passed.
My biggest “where were they?” mystery involves my great-great-grandfather Thomas, who was born in Oneida County, NY, in 1828. He does not appear in a census until 1870, after he and his wife had moved to Wis. In the 1860 census, his wife Eliza is listed as living with her parents and siblings under her married name, but no Thomas. His brother Charles is listed in the 1850 and 1860 Censuses as running the family farm in Oneida County, but no Thomas.  How does a man escape being listed in the census for the first 40 years of his life? And where in the world was he?
As you dig deeper into your family history, you’ll have to accept that some mysteries are not meant to be solved.  What mysteries lie in your family history?
Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.
For more information on Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com
and click on Family History Research.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Be Prepared to be Surprised

Once you start looking into your family’s history, be prepared for some surprises. In following my maternal grandfather’s line, I discovered what I considered to be an unusual custom. 
Several generations ago, when large families – 10 to 15 children – were the norm and the child mortality was high, it was common to find more than one child within a family with the same name. This would happen after a child died; the next child born of the same gender would often be given the dead child’s name.
To say I was surprised at this custom would be putting it mildly. My initial reaction was that each child deserved his or her own name. And wouldn’t you get a little superstitious when the child with that name keeps dying?  In my family, my grandfather’s grandmother was Mary #3.
But then I began to run into it more and more often. I have heard these children called “replacements,” but have come to believe the custom was more of a memorial, a tribute to the deceased child.   What will surprise you about your family’s history?
Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.
For more information on Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com
and click on Family History Research.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The Census Index Name Game – Part II

Occasionally you won’t be able to find a relative in a particular census. You can find them in the census 10 years prior, and you find them in the census 10 years later living in the same place. What happened in-between?
As I mentioned in The Census Index Name Game – Part I, it could be that their name was misspelled or incorrectly transcribed in the census index, or it could be something as simple as no one was home when the census taker made his rounds.
A tracking method that has worked for me is to choose a neighbor, usually someone on the same page of the census where you found your relative, and see if you can find that neighbor in the census where you’re unable to find your relative. If your family is listed in that census, they should be on the same page as their neighbor, or within close proximity.

Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com
For more information on Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com
and click on Family History Research.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The Census Index Name Game

A rose by any other name1…Roselyn, Rosella, Roseanne, even Katelyn…could still be your ancestor.
Let’s say you know your ancestor’s name was Rose. It’s quite possible Rose was a nickname, and her real name was Roselyn, or Rosella, or Roseanne.  Even with the correct surname, tracking a relative through the censuses can be confusing if you’re looking for a specific first name, but your relative is listed under another name.
There are basically two ways to look for an ancestor in the census records:
1)      Search the census indexes available through many subscription genealogy online databases,2 or
2)      Search the individual, handwritten census pages (online or via microfilm).
The index search is by far the fastest and easiest route, but it’s frequently complicated by errors. These indexes have been transcribed directly from the handwritten census pages, and are often transcribed incorrectly, resulting in misspellings or completely wrong names.
 For example, in the 1910 Federal Census my grandmother Ida Kniss is listed in Ancestry.com’s census index as Ida Brairs. The index transcriber had mistaken a capital “K” for a capital “B,” a small “n” for an “r,” and so on. Because she was living at the time with her maternal grandparents who had a different surname, there was no other family member’s surname to compare it to, making her very difficult to locate using the index.
A similar bad transcription could have happened to your ancestor. Roselyn could have been transcribed as Katelyn, Rosey could have become Kasey.
I was able to find my grandmother only because I knew she was living with her maternal grandparents and what their names were. If I didn’t know that information, I would have had to search for her through the individual, handwritten census pages. That can be an extremely time-consuming task, depending on how large your ancestor’s community was and how much information you have. Add to that the legibility, or more likely, the illegibility of the census taker’s handwriting, and you could spend hours searching for your family.
The fairly small town of Chippewa Falls, Wis., where my grandma grew up had 10 wards in 1910. Each ward has its own set of census records, one with as few as 10 pages, one with as many as 27 pages.  Imagine trying to wade through the census pages for a large city.
If you decide to use the census index records to locate a relative, first check the names of the rest of the family to make sure you have the right family, and then check the handwritten census pages. You might see a different name than the census index transcriber did, because you know what you’re looking for.
If you are unable to locate your ancestor in a census index by keying in her real name, remember: transcription error is always a possibility. Think beyond the actual spelling of your ancestor’s name.  What are the most likely ways the given name or the surname could be misspelled? Always search with an open mind.
Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com
For more information on Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com
and click on Family History Research.

1Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, 1600; http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/305250.html
2Historical societies or genealogy societies for some small, less populated counties may have indexes for certain censuses available online at no cost.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Making Sense of Census Records – Your second best family history resource

When possible, it’s best to start your family history research with family interviews. Learning surnames and siblings’ names, as well as the names and locations of towns where your ancestors once lived, will be a big help when you start searching the census records.
Knowing at least one complete name, where the person lived and approximately when he or she was alive will make searching the census records easier. On the other hand, you need to remember that the early census records were compiled by people – census takers – who wrote down the information given to them by the people they were interviewing. While most immigrants spoke some English, many did not read or write English. Therefore, names are often misspelled or spelled phonetically and birth and immigration dates may be incorrect.
Even with these errors, census records can be a goldmine of information for the family history researcher.  From the first Federal Census in 1790 to the 1840 Census, only the name of the head of household was listed.  The remaining family members were not named, but counted by category -- grouped by age, gender and whether free or slave.
Beginning with the 1850 Federal Census, a great deal more information became available. Here are a few examples of what you can learn about your ancestors from the census:

  • name, sex, age, color and occupation of each member of the household
    (1850-1930)
  • married/attended school within the year (1850-1880)
  • value of real estate (1850-1870)
  • place of birth (state, territory, country) (1850-1930)
  • father’s/mother’s place of birth ( 1880-1930)
  • person’s relationship to head of household (1900-1930)
  • year of immigration to the U.S. (1900-1930)
  • number of years of present marriage (1900-1910)
  • mother of how many children/number of these children living (1900-1910)
  • own a radio set (1930)

The 1890 Federal Census was destroyed by a fire in 1921. Most of the records not burned in the fire were made unusable by water and smoke damage.  Several of the subscription databases are trying to recapture the 1890 data through state, territorial and other censuses and city directories from around that time.

The 1930 Census is the most recent census data currently available.  The 1940 Census data will become available in 2012. By law, the data must be 72 years old (presumably the life expectancy of the average person) before it can be released.
Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.
For more information on Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com
and click on Family History Research.

Monday, May 23, 2011

In Honor of Memorial Day: Getting Information from WWI Draft Registration Cards

You may not have had a Revolutionary War soldier in your family like one of my clients, but you most likely have a soldier or two who served his or her country somewhere in your family line.

My father was a marine. My paternal and maternal grandfathers both served in WWI. Both were privates, both 21-year-old small town boys seeing the world for the first time.
“During World War I, there were three registrations. The first was on June 5, 1917, registering men between the ages of 21 and 31. The second was on June 5, 1918, registering men who had turned 21 since June 5, 1917 (A supplemental registration on Aug. 24, 1918, registered those becoming 21 since June 5, 1918.). The third registration was held on September 12, 1918, and registered men 18 through 45. So, all men born between 1872 and September 1900 who were not in active military service by June 1917 filled out draft registration cards, whether they were native born, naturalized, or alien.”  http://www.eogen.com/USWorldWarIDraftRegistrations

WWI draft registration cards, available through Ancestry.com and other subscription online genealogy databases, can give you some personal information about your relatives that you may not get anywhere else, such as height (tall, medium, short), build (slender, medium, stout), hair color, eye color, place of birth, current address, nearest relative, marital status, name of employer, etc., as well as being able to see their personal signature.  Is WWI military service a part of your family’s history?

Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


For more information on Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com
and click on Family History Research.

   
Fort Snelling National Cemetery, Minneapolis, MN ©pje

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Touching a Part of History

Not every family will have a Mayflower passenger, Georg e Washington or Florence Nightingale as a member; however, everyone has family members that have touched a part of history in some way.  My historical fiction book, The Memory Quilt,” was based loosely on my paternal grandmother’s family’s experiences during the Cloquet-Moose Lake Fire of 1918. Her family survived the fire, which consumed the towns of Cloquet, Moose Lake and parts of Duluth, by covering themselves with wet blankets and rugs and lying in the bottom of a shallow gravel pit they had dug when building the foundation for their new barn. 

My maternal great-great-great-grandparents came to the U.S. from Germany on a clipper ship. They left Germany on Oct. 2, 1865, and arrived in NY on Nov. 15.  A similar trip taken by so many other immigrants, and yet imagine that voyage: six weeks on the ocean in a ship with no motor, just sails; mom, dad and five kids – the youngest an infant less than a year old. 

In following a client’s paternal grandmother’s line, we discovered that she had several ancestors that fought in the Revolutionary War, and one that fought in the War of 1812. She also had two ancestors that lived in New England in the 1640s, long before the Declaration of Independence was signed, long before the U.S. was a country.  And yet, no one had ever talked about it.


Learning how and where your family has been a part of history, such as surviving a catastrophic event, being part of a wave of immigration from a particular country or having a role in establishing a new, independent nation, is very exciting. Discovering your roots can help you touch a part of history through your ancestors’ lives.


Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.

For more information on Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com
and click on Family History Research.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Discovering Who You Are

“Who Do You Think You Are?” (http://www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are/) is not only a popular NBC TV-show where celebrities trace their family history, but also a valid question. I was always told I was a quarter Finnish, a quarter Swedish, a quarter German, an eighth English and an eighth French (Canadian). In other words, as my brother says, a mutt. 
As I tracked my maternal grandfather’s family through census and nationalization records, I discovered that my mother had neglected to mention another nationality: saints and begora, I was also Irish. While both of my grandfather’s maternal grandparents were born in Quebec, only his maternal grandfather was actually French. His mother’s parents were both born in Down County, Ireland, and moved to French Canada with their parents as children.
Somehow that small bit of what I consider important information never got passed along. To be honest, I don’t think my mother had any idea. I’ve had to readjust, reconfigure, rethink who I am, because Irish had never been a part of who I thought I was. Now, I can rightfully celebrate St. Urho’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day.
Who do you think you are?
Discover your roots and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.
For more information on Family History Research services, visit TheMemoryQuilt.com
and click on Family History Research.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Beginning to Gather Info for Your Family Tree


Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone1

Joni Mitchell originally wrote Big Yellow Taxi to publicize the growing loss of our natural resources to pavement and parking lots, but it could just as well be about the loss of first-person resources for your family’s history. Too often, by the time you have questions and are looking for answers, your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles have all passed away. That’s when you realize that you’ve not only lost people you care about very much, but your best resources for names, dates and notable family events.

You can change that

Before your treasured family members and their stories are gone, find time to involve your parents or grandparents in a family history project. They will feel appreciated, and you will more than likely hear stories you’ve never heard before.

Script out your questions in advance, and make an effort to audio or video tape your interview to maintain a record. Stay flexible. Be prepared to veer off your script occasionally, as one of your questions may lead you into an area you may not have been anticipating, but once you’ve covered that topic, try to maneuver your questions back to your script.

Suggested topics

  • How and where your parents – or grandparents – met
  • Your mother’s, grandmothers’ and great-grandmothers’ maiden name
  • Your great-grandparents’ full names with the correct spellings and where they lived
  • Names of your grandparents’ siblings
  • Births/deaths – when and where
  • Marriages – when and where
  • Immigration – where your grandparents or great-grandparents come from (country/city/town), when they arrived and where they began their lives in America
The above topics will prove to be very helpful once you begin tracking your family in the federal and state census and immigration records.

Pamela J. Erickson

1Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi; (c) 1970 Siquomb Publishing Corp. (BMI)