Census Consensus
I have an interesting challenge concerning a few elusive censuses I have yet to find. While I have found the vast majority of the censuses I’ve needed for my seven generation family tree, here are a few that have eluded me. If any of you would like to help me take a crack at these, feel free. I’ll give the name, FamilySearch ID, and census years for each of the nine individuals on this chart. In other words, these are the censuses that I cannot find for each individual. For example, while I have found the 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940 census for Joseph Robert Jones, I haven’t been able to find the 1900 census, and so on. If you find one or more of these censuses listed below, please contact me in the comment section below. Thanks!
Joseph Robert Jones(KWVG-QN2; 1900)
Susan Elizabeth Merritt(K298-X8T; 1900)
Nancy Catherine Bennett(M4SL-Y4M; 1920)
Mary Frances Moore(L2T8-HS2; 1850,1860)
Calvin R Finch(KJMD-KBD;1870)
Nancy Ann Bailey(K69Z-KLJ;1880)
Guy Halifax Stevens(MYNC-PHN;1900, 1910)
James Thadeus Stevens(MB6W-MPD; 1900)
Mary Elizabeth Johnson(9KB5-WLC; 1900)
Best Answers
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keep in mind - many people were plain not counted on the census
if you havent found them using some basic searches - - there is a good possibilty they aren't there to found.
but of course illegible handwriting, mistranscriptions, bad indexing etc - account for some of that.
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How often did this happen? I know that most of the time, when I can’t find a census, it’s usually because the census taker wrote the name wrong or it was badly indexed or something as you said. I know that for really old censuses prior to 1850, a couple of them only recorded a third of the total population or something, but how much of the population was recorded after that date?
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Just think about how extraordinarily difficult it would have been to count and record every single person in the country without missing anyone. (especially knowing the circumstances and limitations of time and resources)
Yes - your experience has been with the misspellings - because you eventually did find them and thus they became part of your experience.
You wont find a totally missing entry - so you are not going to have that as part of your experience. Thus your perception is biased - because it doesn't include what you didnt find.
I would say the amount could be anywhere from 1-5% of the people were never even counted on the census - based on my own experience - because I have done exhaustive searches for Yanceys and counted those that were never found - even after looking for alternate spellings etc.
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Answers
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this was an analysis of my census research for Yanceys
the vast majority of these I do not expect ever to be found on the census - I dont believe they are there to be found (after years of research)
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@Dennis J Yancey
Yeah, you're right about that. It makes total sense that some people aren't mentioned in the censuses and that is a very reasonable explanation for why I can't find some of these censuses. Based on your math of there being about 1-5% of people not being counted on the censuses, that would make sense based on the number of censuses I haven't been able to find. However, I will still attempt to search for these people using the census images we have on FamilySearch. I will search their respective counties and if that fails for some of the censuses I'm looking for, I'll just assume that those are among the uncounted. I think the Calvin Finch one may be an example of a unrecorded census since I can't find him or his family members on the census that were there on 1860 and 1880. But anyway, I'll do my best. Thank you for your help!
Sincerely,
Benjamin Jones
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