People Not Listed in an 1850 Census Record

richardholdenatkinson1

The 1850 Census Record for James Van Valkenburgh living in Bibb County, Georgia - Born 1804 in New York - Does Not list his wife and children on the Census Record. They are however listed on the Actual Census Record itself. So I was unable to put these people into his Family Tree.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

You're using "record" for two rather different things: there's "record" as in "index entry", and there's "record" as in "historical document". The two are linked, but not at all the same, and I would argue that "record" is not the right word for the first one. (Remember that indexes are not the data. They are merely finding aids for the data.)

I presume you're talking about this index entry: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MZYN-V43. I can see that there's something funky going on here; the entire family is highlighted if you look at the image, but there's only the one entry, for James, on the Index tab. In other words, the index is incomplete, as it's missing most of this family. (The index did, however, serve its purpose: you found them.)

While U.S. census indexes are generally correctable on FamilySearch, you cannot add any fields or entries using this feature. This means that if any of the people were new, you'd need to add them to Family Tree the normal way, rather than using Source Linker -- but in fact, they're all already there. So what you actually need to do is to create a source citation directly for the image, using your Source Box, and then attach that as a source to the family members who are missing from the index. You'll need to use a fairly generic source title, so that it applies equally to all of the people listed, but the great advantage of the method is that the citations will all be linked: correcting something in the citation in one instance will correct it in all of the instances, instead of needing to go to each person's sources tab to edit the citations individually.

Here's how I would do it:

Open the image in one browser tab, and James's profile in another. Also open a text editor.

Using the text editor and the browser tab with the census image, transcribe the family's entries and the header information that will help to find this record again. (See below for what I'd write.)

On the census image, click the Source Box button in the gray strip at the top, and choose Add to My Source Box. Edit the source title; I'd use something like "United States Census, 1850: James Van Valkenberg and family, Bibb county, Georgia". (Feel free to remove the URL that it automatically sticks in there; it'll be in the citation that it generates.) Copy-and-paste your transcription and other details from the text editor into the Notes field, and click Save.

Still on the browser tab with the census image (which you're done with now), click your name-and-icon at the topmost right-hand corner of the screen and choose Source Box. Your newly-created citation should be at the top of the list.

For each family member listed in the census (James, Mary E., and nine children), do the following steps: 1. Go to the browser tab with the profile of James, find the family member, and click the alphanumeric code next to the name. Click "Copy ID". 2. On the browser tab now showing your Source Box, click the Attach button to the right of the citation you created. 3. On the pop-up, choose By ID Number, paste the ID into the box, and click Find. 4. Optionally add a reason statement for the attachment, then click Attach.

As a final step after making all of the attachments, I suggest looking at the result on the Sources tab of one of the family members and adding a source date (1850). You can also do this in your Source Box by clicking the title and then Edit, but I like to see the fruits of my labors by going to one of the profiles instead.

---

Here's my notes and transcription:

US Census 1850 - Georgia - Bibb - Bibb county - image 118 of 177

483d? Dest G M?? in the county of Bibb, state of Georgia, enumerated 9th Sept 1850

Page 379 or 387 or 192?

Dwelling number: (unreadable, but between 58 and 60), Family number: 61

Jas VanValkenberg, age 46, sex M, occupation Machanick, value of real estate 12500, place of birth NY

M E ", 39, F, -, -, "

James D ", 21, M, Machanick, -, "

H L ", 18, F, -, -, "

Sarah ", 16, F, -, -, "

Wm D ", 14, M, -, -, ", attended school within the year Y

Mary E ", 12, F, -, -, ", Y

George ", 10, M, -, -, ", Y

Martha ", 6, F, -, -, ", Y

Edward ", 4, M, -, -, "

Charles ", 1, M, -, -, Ga

Amanda Bale, 58, F, -, -, NY

Orrin(?) Hall, 31, M, Machanich, -, Cont(?)

A C Dillettin, 28, M, no, -, S.C.

richardholdenatkinson1