Remember that the census we use today was not the one on which the census taker took his “original” enumeration. The census copy that was microfilmed, and eventually digitized, was the “clean” copy that was written by the census taker after he finished taking the census. He used his field notes to make the good copy that we use today. Any chance there was something in his field notes he couldn’t read? And what was the chance that he went down and asked for clarification on an age or place of birth? ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Family historians need to remember that for many censuses, we do not really know who answered the census questions. Was it the wife who never knew her husband’s parents and yet had to answer questions about where they were born? Was it a child who had no idea when her father immigrated to the United States or when he became a citizen? Most of us weren’t there when the censustaker came to our ancestor’s door. As a result, we just don’t know who really gave the answers to specific questions. If the answers vary from census year to census year, it may be because the individual answering the questions varied from census year to census year. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
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