While struggling with the search for the family connection
between John Kelly Stevens of Fort Wayne and
young Raphael Kruse of Lafayette,
Indiana, a thought dawned on me.
It happened after I agonized about connecting the two families through what
turned out to be a young widowed immigrant. And it occurred while working with
the 1860 United States
census which, as we’ve all realized, is not quite so handy at providing all the
familial details we’d like to receive.
It was in finally finding Eliza Murdock Clark Stevens’
whereabouts in the 1860 census that I noticed a habit I was developing. It was
a simple, understandable reaction to government labels: I quite cooperatively
took them literally.
The first time I looked for Eliza in 1860 records, of
course, I had no idea her surname would be listed as Clark.
I hadn’t yet found that missing step in her life’s story. Oh, I had also
searched for her by using her brothers’ names as listed in John Stevens’ obituary—but as I mentioned yesterday, I really hadn’t had any luck with that
approach, either.
It may have been possible that I did notice this other Murdock—who turned out to be Eliza’s
brother Samuel—by using search terms “Eliza” with “Murdock” and limiting the
results to 1860. After all, she did show up in a Murdock household.
However, even if I wasn’t thrown off the trail by the
unexpected surname of Clark, there would have
been two other clues to keep me from pursuing that possibility any farther:
- First, there was another Clark listed—Ellen—of whom I knew nothing at the time
- More importantly, there was an occupational listing that immediately would have thrown me off track.
Trust in the procedural instructions for census takers had
been so solidly cemented in my mind that when I saw the occupational label, “domestic,”
I dismissed that particular Eliza out
of hand as merely a “maid” coincidentally working in that household rather than
seeing her a relative. I don’t know why. We certainly have seen more than our
fair share of mistakes in census records over the years. I guess it’s just time
for me to shake that implicit trust in governmental systems.
Ya think?
I have to confess: this isn’t the first time I’ve been too
quick to discard any notion of the possibility for error in governmental
documentation. I’m thinking now of some other records, where households
included people with surnames other than the one I was researching. Why did I
dismiss them? Because the census taker labeled them as “boarder” instead of
including the fact that they might also
have been distant relatives.
Right now, I’m mentally doing a records census of my own,
thinking of all the times I’ve come back to the fact that the label affixed by
the census taker wasn’t exactly the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth, so help me, God.
If nothing else, this teaches me to slow down and not be so
quick to trust every person with a pen and clipboard who comes to the door
promising, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Lesson = Question Everything
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, Colleen! Even those things that seem "safe" and inviolable.
DeleteDittos Colleen. :)
ReplyDelete..and add hard to read handwriting decipherment!
...why I always prefer seeing a copy of the document to relying only on the word of an indexer. Even though I appreciate the volunteer work done, and know it is so necessary, that double-check of getting my own eyes on a document reassures me that I've got the correct item.
DeleteAnd of course, those who provided the information, too...
ReplyDeleteYes! Crazy how it could have been just a neighbor--no matter how much of a "nosy neighbor" someone could have been!
DeleteHello Jacqi. This made me think of an error I found in the recording of a birth record I found recently. The same mother was recorded for two different children born about the same time. Fortunately, this was not a difficult problem to solve.
ReplyDeleteRegards, Grant
Glad you figured out the solution to that one, Grant. My mind went flying to all the possibilities...
DeleteI know even the Census Records are mysterious at times. They didn't have to spell or have a legible hand...how did they get hired or were they so desperate they took anyone ?:)
ReplyDeleteWho knows how those people were hired. Probably not much differently than today. And think of all the times when not much schooling was obtained--not to mention all the folks who were illiterate. I'm thinking of our original Stevens immigrant, who signed his Declaration papers with a sign of a cross--what did he care whether his surname was written with a "v" or a "ph"? It probably all came down to what the government official decided.
DeleteI guess the bottom line is to be flexible and search for all variations--and to be thankful for searchable digital copies online, which can help eliminate a large number of those possibilities and zero us in on the right leads.
Yeah, I've been saddened by the numbers of my ancestors listed as "boarders" when perhaps they were a cousin or niece or nephew. I've thought, "Cold -- that's just cold." The label as "domestic" I've thought indicated the most-likely-a-spinster was doing a little housekeeping in exchange for room and board.
ReplyDelete