Census

The census is a great tool, and with folks having as many kids as they did in the 17th to 19th centuries, it really helps flesh out families, every 10 years as one or two children leave the home and new kids are being born, you typically have a couple of anchor kids in the middle - aged 4-8 - to know this is the actual same family. This is particularly important as you'll sometimes get weird naming issues crop up (in my family Moses shows up as "M.F. Ferrell" in the 1940 census (Row #79), and Elijah shows up as "Lige" in 1880 (Row #1), and Moses wife Clearisa's name's spelling is changed nearly every census.

1890 Census Fire

The 1890 census files were mostly destroyed by fire in 1929. Ironically Cincinnati/Hamilton County is one of the few locations that were, at least somewhat, spared (where I currently live)... but none of my ancestors were here in that year.

The missing 1890 census isn’t as simple as “it was lost in a fire.” Actually, different parts of the census burned in not one, but two fires. After the second and more devastating fire, the surviving waterlogged records were left neglected, then quietly destroyed years later by government administrators.

The ill-fated 1890 census was taken at a critical time in US history. The population had topped 50 million in 1880 and climbed by another 25 percent in the following decade. Foreign-born residency jumped a third during those years. Inside the country, a restless population moved westward and into urban centers. The 1890 census captured a nation in motion.

Missing Persons

On top of the 1890 fire, somehow several of my key families get missed in several of the census' of interest. Arvid and Anna, my grandpa/grandma, are missing in 1930 in Middletown, OH. Middletown is a good-sized city by this time, and I have the City Directory entry for them for 1928, 1930, and 1933, so I know pretty solidly what street they were on. Using Steve Morse's Enumeration District Decoder, I found the ED that should be in... of course Fleming is the boundary of a couple of districts, but I looked in all three possibilities, and they're not there. In fact, I can't find any 1900 block Fleming Road entries, so it seems that section was just truly missed by the enumerator, as strange as that seems.

Then Moses and Clearisa and Elijah and Augusta Ferrell are both missing in 1900. No ideas as to why. I tried searching for husband, wife's and kids names that should be in the house, and scanned every page in the townships they should be in, but couldn't find them... so... frustrating...