Pay close attention to those non-relatives in your ancestor’s census enumeration. While they could be non-relatives renting a room or hired hands to help with field work, it’s also very possible they are relatives who needed a place to land until they got settled.
Don’t just write those “other people” in an enumeration off as someone not worth researching. You could be missing out on making a connection.
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I’ve thought about that with same issue at one of my families household. Maybe they got married b4 or had other members married into the family. Could have become widowed, remarried or stayed single.
This is one of your best Tips and so many people skip over and don’t bother checking into who they are. Many times they are the wife’s sibling (brother, sister, etc.) and it is the key to your Grandmothers maiden name and the clue to giving you the next family line to research. This can end up being just the Line you need to get into that CAR, DAR, SAR, War of 1812 or another Lineage Organization you have been waiting to get into or just adding an additional Patriot. There are numerous reasons to take the time and check these people out.
Good advice. I was trying, unsuccessfully, to find 4x Ggrandparents in 1841 England/Wales census. Eventually found the family scattered – boys recorded as “pupils” in schools run by their uncles, mother (heavily pregnant) with her 3 girls in a different county. Father still to be located. (Family restored in 1851)
20 years later, I found 2 “strays”, I listed in an ancestor’s household in the first Canada West census in 1851 were actually grandchildren of a daughter, who died before 1851and no one at that time knew that daughter had existed until a descendant contacted us.
I also list relatives I find working or lodging in a different family. They quite often connect up, later on as family.