Making Sense of Censuses--(Not) All in the Family

Making Sense of Censuses–(Not) All in the Family

Like many other records, census records can be a genealogist’s friend, and a source of confusion. They provide information, but sometimes the information they provide is not obvious. One area that can trap the unwary is what to make of the possible relationships of people living in a particular household. From 1880 on, this is less of an issue because relationship are given. But for the 1850, 1860, and 1870 censuses, you’re on your own.
There are a variety of reasons why some occupants are not related to the head of the household in which they were enumerated. Understanding life in the nineteenth century can at least alert you to possible dead ends. Here are a few categories of people who might have been living with your ancestor, but had no family connection.
1. Laborers. This is by far the most common category of persons living in households in which they are not related to the head of household. All during the 1800s, farmers employed laborers and it’s not unusual for a laborer, wife, and children, to be counted in the employer’s household. Certainly before reapers were invented, farmers needed help to harvest grain on a 40-acre farm. In fact, the countryside in Jefferson County, laborer is the second most common occupation listed in the censuses. (The most common is farmer.)
2. Domestic servants. Where laborers are more likely to be male, domestics (maids) are more often female. This class also occurs more in town than in the country.
3. Wards of the county. These are the welfare cases. Private individuals were paid by the county commissioners to take care of people who had fallen on hard times. Records show these could be widows, those made indigent by illness, and orphans.
4. Apprentices. The practice of apprenticing young people to learn a trade died out as the century progressed. But it was still practiced in the 1850s. Sometimes there may be a family connection as orphans were apprenticed to relatives with some regularity.
5. Teachers. Teachers sometimes boarded with parents of their students. These folks were not paid spectacularly well.
6. Boarders. Teachers were probably among the most common boarders, but other professionals, such as doctors, craftsmen, and traveling merchants are also found in households to which they have no familial connection.
7. Orphans. Minors were often given guardians within their family, but in other cases, they may simply have been taken in by kind families. As mentioned they may have been apprenticed, but they may also have been “farmed out” as wards, or without any formal legal arrangement.
8. Visitors. These are people who were in the house the day the census taker came by.

That last category requires some discussion. Some census takers obviously were serious in counting those who happened to be in the house on the day of the visit. Others probably only counted those people who lived there.
In fact, since censuses were taken on different dates, it is quite possible for people who moved during the census year to counted at both their old residence and new residence. For example, Andrew Everhart, a paper maker, is listed in 1850 in Symmes Township, Hamilton County, Ohio, age 30, and also in the 1850 census for Milton Township, Jefferson County, Ind. That shows the importance of noting the date on which any particularly household was counted. (Listed on the census page. And, no, I didn’t get the dates for the two Everhart listings.)
Similarly, people were sometimes counted in their own household and in a house in which they were simply visiting. Absolom Hankins, age 21, and Elijah Hankins, age 18, are both listed in the household of Catherine Hankins in Milton Township in 1850. They were also listed in the household of Andrew and Lucinda Graham in Pleasant Township. It turned out that Lucinda Rogers who married Andrew Graham was a sister to Catherine Rogers who married Joseph Hankins Jr. So it became obvious there was no need to account for two men with the same name and ages.

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