Non-Population Census Schedules on Ancestry.com

     For some time, Ancestry.com has had a few states worth of Non-Population Census Schedules online. I found a lot of relatives in their South Carolina records and waited patiently for the Georgia records to go online. I could have accessed these in person at the Georgia Archive, but there are so many records other there that I had not gotten around to them.  Then I didn't bother to get around to them since they didn't have an index and Ancestry.com announced that they would be putting the GA records online in 2011. Well, that didn't happen. But on May 21st the Non-Population database was updated and the GA records arrived. Yay!

     Well, not so much "yay" as "what the...?" There are some problems with the Georgia index. Some somewhat serious problems that could impact researchers.


     First: badly indexed names.  Now, some of this is due to bad images. I browsed a number of pages that were extremely difficult to read, probably based on bad microfilm copies. I'm sure the original records were destroyed long ago, so Ancestry can only work with the current microfilm. But the indexing problems go well beyond that.

     See the image on the right? I think the name of my 3x Great-Grandfather is pretty clear: "R T Smith." Maybe the indexer might not get the "T", but otherwise it's pretty easy. Apparently not. The only thing the indexer got right was the "T"! They turned the "R" into a "B" and "Smith" into "Chnith."

     There is no way that anyone searching for Smith would find this record. So how did I find him? I searched for my ancestor's neighbors in the corresponding population census, using the FAN Club approach to search for Friends, Associates & Neighbors.

    Most of them were indexed badly as well, but at least "Brnmbelo" is close enough to "Brumbelo" to be found via soundex. Once I found this record I went through a portion of the page adding corrections to the names. Although this is the worst example that I've found so far, many of my other ancestors have indexing errors that should have been pretty obvious.

     Second: mixing up the 1860 and 1850 records. I really don't understand how this happened, but let me start with a screenshot:

     As you can see in the image, I was searching for anyone with the surname "Boatright" in Emanuel County, Georgia in 1850. I got results back for both 1850 and 1860.  If I do the same search, but in 1860, I don't get any results. So it seems that the 1860 records have been placed in the 1850 category.  Further, when you save an 1860 record to your family tree, it is saved with an 1850 date.  This is not the only example of this that I've run across and I have reported this error to Ancestry.com.

     So, if you are searching the Non-Population Census Schedules on Ancestry.com prepare to do some creative searching. I'm finding my ancestors and I'm coming up with some great information, but it's more difficult than it should be.

He Was Married Four Times to Two Women

     I'm doing a little bit of last minute 1940 Census prep research.  I have never been able to find my maternal grandmother's parents, Vary "Mack" Huyler and Ruby Waters, in the 1930 census.  They would be married less than a year later in Atlanta, Georgia, but I just can't find them.

     Thanks to city directories, I know exactly where Ruby will be found in 1940: living in Atlanta with her second husband.  But what about Mack? I know he left Ruby shortly after their daughter was born to "find work." He didn't return for 14 years. So where was he in 1940?

     I know from his social security application that he was in Augusta, Georgia in 1937. That's where I planned to look. But today I decided to do one last run through city directories to see if I could find a listing for him in a 1940 book. I didn't find him in 1940, but I did find him in 1939 - in Greensboro, North Carolina. With a wife. Surprise!

     Well, something of a surprise.  I know who Ruth was. She was Ruth Sexton, Mack's second wife... or third... or would that be fourth? I guess it depends on how you count. Based on the information I have, it now looks like she's both Mack's 2nd and 4th wife, with my Great-Grandmother Ruby Waters being his 1st and 3rd.  Mack was married four times, to two women.  Here's the timeline I can piece together:

• Feb 1931 - Mack Huyler m. Ruby Waters, Atlanta (marriage certificate)
• abt 1937 - Ruby Waters m. Cecil Whitfield (city directory)
• by 1939 - Mack Huyler m. Ruth Sexton (city directory)
• Dec 1947 - Mack Huyler m. Ruby Waters (bible record)
• abt 1960 - Mack Huyler m. Ruth Sexton (obituary)

     I have evidence of a lot of marriages, but I don't have any official records. Even the first marriage between Ruby and Mack, I have a certificate but I haven't found an actual license (I assume the online database is incomplete and that microfilm in not available at the archive).  And what about divorces? Hopefully the couples were legally divorced...

     And hopefully Mack can still be found at 710 Railroad St for the 1940 census.  If so, he'll be in ED 41-58 in either block 313 or 314. Fingers crossed!

Census Sunday - The Great-Grandparents in 1920

Here's a breakdown of  my Great-Grandparents in the 1920 census. You can click each image to view a larger size.

My paternal grandfather's parents, Bennie E Craft and S Ruth Evans were married and living on River Road in Gaines, Elbert, Georgia in 1920. This is the only time I've seen Bennie, or BE as he was called, recorded as Benjamin.  He is a farmer, but there is no listing to show if he rents or owns (I'd guess rents). Both BE and Ruth know how to read and write. They are living next door to Ruth's mother and stepfather, Leila Craft Evans Brown & Jim Brown. Yes, Ruth's mother's maiden name was Craft and Ruth married a Craft - her third cousin to be exact.

My paternal grandmother's father, Nathan Britt, was living Militia District 1429 of Emanuel County, Georgia in 1920.  He was working as a farmer and boarding with the Alford family, though he was listed as working on his "own account." The census states that he could not read or write.








My paternal grandmother's mother, Ledora Barfield, was living with her parents and siblings in a rented home in Militia District 1560 of Emanuel County, Georgia in 1920. At age 13 Ledora was attending school as her parents worked a farm, and could both read and write.

My maternal grandfather's father, C Vernon Albea, was living with his parents and siblings in a rented home at 845 Ritson Ave in Greenwood Township, Greenwood, South Carolina in 1930. At age 16 he was attending school as his father worked in a cotton mill. Vernon could both read and write.

My maternal grandfather's mother, Mamie Auline Witt, lived with her parents and siblings in a rented home at 712 Carley Street in Greenwood Township, Greenwood, South Carolina in 1920. Her father worked at a cotton mill and 16 year old Auline attended school. She could both read and write.

My maternal grandmother's father, Vary "Mack" Huyler, lived with his parents and siblings in a rented home at 422 Edmonds Road in Lexington Township, Lexington, South Carolina in 1920. He was 17 years old and working as a section hand on the rail road. According to family, Vary would soon leave his family and strike out on his own. He cannot be found on the 1930 census.

My maternal grandmother's mother, Ruby Lee Waters, was living with her parents and siblings in a rented home at 51 River Road in Milstead, Rockdale, Georgia in 1920. Her father was working as a weaver in the cotton mill and she was attending school, but at 8 years old was not yet reading and writing.

If Stephen Colbert Can Fill Out His Census...

     I've been following the official census blog and reading the comments that others are leaving.  Most of the comments are negative and argumentative - it seems that folks feel that the census is an overpriced privacy intrusion into their lives.  Many feel that the questions are not legal, since the constitution only states that the population shall be "enumerated." I won't go into my spiel about how I believe these folks are cynical conspiracy minded people....  But I will let Stephen Colbert do it for me in his wonderfully satirical way.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
United States Census 2010
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care reform

The Census Is Coming

Today we received our 2010 Census "advance letter." According to the official Census Blog, these letters began going out back on February 17th to the update/leave households. The metro Atlanta area will be doing the standard mail back census forms. The letter indicates we'll receive our census a week from now.

My aunt lives on the GA coast in an update/leave area. She has a job with the census and will be going door to door to leave the census forms. I'll have to ask her how that's going.

Name Your Kids Already!

This is the 1880s Census enumeration of my Sprouse Ancestors. The family of William Washington and Nancy K (Armstrong) Sprouse were living in Abbeville, Abbeville, South Carolina in 1880. This page shows only their children, with the couple listed on the previous page. And the names of two of their children? Babe. As in, unnamed babies. I know that it's not that unusual to have not named a child immediately, but I personally find it unusual to have two unnamed daughters of different ages, neither of which are infants.

The eldest of the unnamed girls was my Great-Great Grandmother, Nina Frances Spouse. I'm curious as to how she made it to the age of two without a name. Could the couple not pick a name? Was she was named after someone? The name Nina (Nine-uh) doesn't appear previously in the family that I can find, though there were tons of Franceses. What was the general length of time that children went without names during this time period?

I'll probably never know specifically why Nina wasn't "Nina" for over two years, but it's an interesting mystery to ponder.

As a Substitute, you get a C

Ancestry.com recently announced its 1950 Census Substitute collection. As they put it,

"The 1950 Census Substitute searches across more than 2,500 U.S. city directories from the mid 1940s through the 1950s. City directories were precursors to modern-day phonebooks and contain the names of each adult resident in the town along with their occupation and home and work addresses. Until the 1950 U.S. Federal Census becomes available, these records serve as a great resource for finding any adult family members who would have been alive during the 1950s."

While I give kudos to Ancestry for providing these documents, I would hardly call it a census substitute. A US census covers the entirety of the population of the country - this collection covers 2,500 cities and maybe their suburbs. This is a great resource for those ancestors lived in the areas that are covered, but the title of this collection may be very misleading for others.

Here are a few states for example:

• Alabama: 7 Cities
• Colorado: 7 Cities
• Georgia: 11 Cities
• Hawaii: 1 City
• New Mexico: 5 Cities
• South Carolina: 6 Cities

As you can see, there are many area that are not covered by this "census substitute." To be fair, there are other areas that have better coverage, but it's hit and miss. And to make matters a bit worse, from what I can tell, most of these city directories cover the same cities that have already been covered in the past. Few new cities appear in these directories, at least for the states that I research. I'd have loved to be able to access a larger geographical area.

So, while this collection is a substitute by dictionary definition, I look at it more like the type of substitutes that we have in schools today. The teacher's out and some random person comes in to watch the class for the day. They give out a reading assignment with a worksheet or play a video. While you might learn a few random facts that apply to the area of study, you have to wait for the teacher's return to really learn anything significant.

The Census - then and now

I know most genealogists are probably looking forward to the upcoming 2010 Census - I know I am. I've never actively taken part in a census before, but I plan to this year (my dad just filled it out and sent it back without any fan-fair). And, of course, genealogists are interested in past censuses.

As a subscriber to the US National Archive's YouTube account, I saw that they had put up video from the 1940 census. It contains very cool archival footage and has that patriotic feeling from similar government productions of the same time period. Here's one of the videos:

Also on YouTube, the Census Bureau has its own channel. It looks like they want to educate folks about how the census will be taken and what the different steps there are in the process. Check out their latest of their video:

What's his occupation?

Can anyone tell me what this says? It's the occupation of my G-Great Grandfather in 1930 Birmingham, AL.

Personalizing the Census

I've said before, that one reason that I love Footnote.com is the way that you can connect documents and records. This makes it easier to browse information about an individual, by connecting it all together.

Another reason why I love Footnote is along the same lines (connections are part of it): You can personalize documents, such as census records. What does this mean? Here's an example.

In 1930 the Britt family (Nathan, LeDora, Ollie, Sarah and Evoid) lived in Emanuel County, GA. They appear there on the census. There's a lot that you can learn about this family from the census, but it is very finite information, speaking only the the past and present. But what about the future? What about the aspects of life that the census form does not ask about? Well, there are lots of other records that you go searching for, or, if you're on footnote.com, you can continue to use the census to answer these questions.

With footnote.com, you can personalize and give life to the names on the census. Take Nathan Britt for instance. Click on his name an a window will pop up, giving you a bunch of options to add comments, photos, stories and relationships. I prefer to simply click on the "View Person Page" link on the top right of the window. From here, you will be able to do all of the previously mentioned options and more. This is the same page that you would see for a SSDI listing on footnote. If you've already personalized a SSDI page for this individual, scroll down to the "Related Pages" section and connect that page to this one as "The Same Person." Also, add relationships to other family members. This is as close to a family tree as you'll get on footnote.

If you haven't yet personalized a page for this person (I have not with Nathan), go ahead and do so with this one for the census listing. Add photos, vital record information, stories and more. Don't forget to Bookmark the page so that you can find it easily.

My page for Nathan now looks like this:

When you're done, go back to the census page. Nathan's listing is now personalized. Instead of just a name, I now have a photo. Changing tabs, I can see more details on his photo and relationship links. And I can click on "View Person Page" for more information.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to be researching a person, finding them for the first time, and finding information like this immediately? A genealogy jackpot! I really hope that this feature takes off with genealogists and would encourage others to play around with these features.

(Also, don't forget to click on "I'm related" on any of these pages. Your account will be linked to the page and other researchers will be able to contact you.)

One error = Great Find

As Footnote.com has been working toward completion of their 1930 census, I've been working on finding the families that I've already identified on Ancestry.com's 1930 census. I was having trouble locating the family of Leverett & Louise Waters using the search function. I ended up using the browse function to go straight to their page (Sheet No. 15A, Ward 3, Block 25, Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia).

That's where I found why I couldn't search them out: they were transcribed as "Walter." Thanks to twitter, I found that I could click on "Flag for Review" under the "About This Document" sidebar to report the error, and the name has now been fixed.

But, this error gave me the idea to search for Walter(s) when looking for the Waters family. I've tried many different variations of Waters, but never this one. And really, you forget to cross a 'T' and it turns into and 'L,' which is an easy mistake. I don't know why it didn't occur to me....

Anyway, I've never been able to find this family in the 1910 census, so I headed by to Ancestry.com. I searched for: Lou* Walters (soundex), born 1881 +/- 5 years, all of USA. And bingo! The first result returned was Louise Walters, born 1882 in Georgia, living with Levert E Walters in Astor, Lake, Florida.

Happy Dance ensues!

So, thanks to an error on one census, I found a missing family in another. And there are quite a few clues in this listing that will help me in the future. For one, I had no idea they ever lived in Florida! Woot! Off to search for more.

I hope they didn't....

I'm always on the look-out for Waters family members who have decided to disappear for the 1930 census. They are three sisters, two of whom are married and who moved away from their parents: Ruby Waters, Alma (Waters) Price, and Ethel (Waters) Quitman or Bouchillon. I just can't find them!

Then, I'm talking to my dad about the upcoming 2010 census, asking about him having filled out prior censuses from my childhood. He then mentions a friend from work who didn't care to fill out the 2000 census. When census takers came to the man's door he said, "There are three people here. That's all you need to know!" and shut the door in their face.

I hope my ancestor didn't do the same!

Where Are You?

I cannot find Ruby Water (b. 1911) and Vary "Mack" Huyler (b. 1903) in the 1930 census and it's very frustrating!

Mack's parents are still at home in Lexington Co., SC and Ruby's are in place in Atlanta. But where are their children? In only a few months, Mack and Ruby will be married in Atlanta. But where are they in April of 1930?

There is a Ruby Waters (b. est 1912) listed as an inmate at in the Georgia State Penitentiary. I wonder....

The First Happy Dance

 I got started in genealogy during a college geography project.  We had multiple options for the project and my mom encouraged me to pick the genealogy project. We set down at the computer and started trying to find information on her paternal grandparetns, Charles Vernon Albea & Auline (Witt) Albea Wilson.  

We didn't know much about the family and knew even less about genealogy!  We found our way to rootsweb.com and from there to ancestry.com.  We searched for CV & Auline, but came up empty.  They should have appeared on the 1930 census, but we couldn't find them.  We searched for their oldest child, Frances "Tootsie" Albea.  No go.  Finally, we searched for my grandfather, Roy.  Jackpot!

We were so excited!  There was my grandfather, as a four year old boy, listed on the 1930 census.  We didn't jump, but there was hugging involved.  I think I bugged all of my friends about the find for days!

And we also saw why we couldn't search out the other family members.  Charles Vernon was Verna, Auline was Aulin and Frances was Ninola.  We had just gotten started and didn't know how to use wildcards or search for middle names.  Needless to say, this find taught us a lot and started an obsession.

Before and After the War

There are a lot of interesting information that can be gleaned from census records.  I thing that I like to do is compare the 1860 and 1870 census records for the same family. It can really show have the family has been impacted by the "War of Northern Aggression." You can easily compare property values between the years to see what sort of monetary impact the War had on the family.

Now, with the release of the South Carolina Non-Population Census records on Ancestry.com, I can get an even more in-depth look at the war's impact. I found John Peter Quattlebaum on the 1860 and 1870 Non-Population census records. I don't know if John fought in the war, but I do know that his sons did.

1860:

1870:

The first thing I notice is that the family is not in the same location - Edgefield Distrist in 1860 and Hibler in 1870.  In 1860, Edgefield County was organized into only three townships.  By 1870, Edgefield County was organized into twenty different townships.  On the populations census records, he neighbors are the same, so I assume that he did not move, but that county organization became more sophisticated.

I see that in 1860 and 1870 he had 308 acres of land, which helps to confirm that he is on the same property. In 1860, the cash value of his land is $2,250, but in 1870 his land is worth only $930. The value of his farming equipment has also plummeted. It would seem that physical equipment might be worth more and harder to find after the war, so perhaps he lost some of his equipment during the war.

The non-population census also records livestock holdings.  From 1860 to 1870 John lost: two horses, a mule, four milk cows, two cattle, three sheep, and 37 swine. He gained two oxen.  The total value of his livestock plummeted by $363. 

His farming production has changed a lot (on second page not shown).  In 1860, John made most of his money potato farming, producing over 100 bushels. By 1870 he's produced less than 20 bushels.  He's made up for the difference with a slight increase in dairy production.  The family has also lost all production of honey and homemade merchandise and their value of slaughtered animals has decreased dramatically.

Overall, it seems that John and his family suffered during the war.  The value of their land decreased and they lost the means to earn money. Without the non-population census records, we wouldn't be able to see the detail of the changes in this family's life.

New Non-Population Census on Ancestry.com

Ancestry has put out Non-Population Census records for South Carolina for 1850-1880.  The records are not indexed, but it's not too hard to browse through them.  I have a good amount of relatives in South Carolina, so I'm lucky that they started with this state.

I decided to look for William Washington Sprouse, who lived much of his life in Abbeville, Abbeville, SC (I have to browse so I started with a town at the beginning of the alphabet).  

I started with the 1880 census.  First I check the population census to see that Wm was in District 1, En. District 2.  Unfortunately, the 1880 census doesn't show up very well in the scans. If William is there, I can't find him.

I had better luck finding Wm in 1870.  He was on the first page! The 1870 agricultural census provides information on how many acres Wm had, what types of animals he had and what crops he grew.  It gives a better insight into the wealth and daily activities of my ancestors. 

The one thing that I wish they would add (aside from the rest of the country!) is a blank census form to help figure out the many categories. 

I'm off to look for more!