Before you overly analyze that incorrect marital status in a census, before you get all “fussed up” over an incorrect place of birth, consider the possibility that what is wrong is simply an error. Sometimes our ancestors lie.But sometimes people just make mistakes. We were not there when they gave the information and when it got written down. Sometimes a mistake is just a mistake. Something to think about before we go making up some grand reason behind the discrepancy. And then again, we could be the one who is wrong and our relative may actually have been correct. Get your Genealogy Tip of the Daybook.
Those of us looking for rural ancestors sometimes ignore the census information regarding addresses that’s contained in the far left hand side of more recent census records (1930 and 1940 for example). That would be a mistake. I located an uncle in the 1940 census for Lima Township in Adams County, Illinois. The “address” indicates he was living on the Adams-Hancock County line road. That was a good clue which told me that he lived along the extreme northern edge of Lima Township.
Recent Comments