No. 1 Resource Has Changed A Bit

Sun., Nov. 15, 1998

Donna Potter Phillips The Spoke

U.S. censuses continue to be the No. 1 resource for American research. National speaker and author Arlene Eakle said so 20 years ago, and it’s still true today.

What has changed is the way we access the censuses:

Heritage Quest has issued a CDROM containing the entire 1870 census indexes for Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. Imagine - being able to search previously un-indexed censuses for three allied states at once. The disk costs $39.95 from Heritage Quest, P.O. Box 329, Bountiful, UT 84011; (800) 760-2455.

To find ancestors on the censuses through the years, genealogists must know about changing county boundaries.

“AniMap Plus County Boundary Historical Atlas” will help you find old towns and define county borders. With this CD-ROM you can display 2,000 maps showing the changing county boundaries in the 48 contiguous states from Colonial times to the present. You can also mark your town to see where it was as the borders changed. Order this $79 disk from The Gold Bug, P.O. Box 588, Alamo, CA 94507; (888) 653-6277.

“Census Records for Latin America and the Hispanic United States,” by Lyman D. Platt, is the largest and most complete survey of census records available for Latin America and Hispanic United States.

One major census was taken from 1492 to 1825 in every Spanish Empire colony. Most in this study are from the 1790 time period, and many have been microfilmed by the Family History Library. Order this 198-page book for $19.95, plus $3.50 postage, from Genealogical Publishing Co., 1001 N. Calvert, Baltimore, MD 21202; (800) 296-6687.

“American Place Names of Long Ago,” assembled by Gilbert S. Bahn, is a 1998 re-publication of the index to “Cram’s Unrivaled Atlas of the World as Based on the Census of 1890.” Bahn says that since the urbanization of America, many early place names have changed or disappeared. The new edition of this 100-year-old source helps researchers find little, and perhaps lost, places. Order this book ($35, plus $3.50 postage) from Genealogical Publishing Inc. (see address above.)

But no matter how many wonderful census aids you may use, you still must study and analyze census records, be aware of how names were understood and written by the enumerators.

Barbara Johnson of Missoula, Mont., graphically illustrates this with a census summary on how the names of her ancestor varied in different censuses:

1820 Kent County Del: Garrettson Jarrel

1830 Franklin Co. Ind: Garret Fitzgerald

1840 Franklin Co. Ind: Garret F. Jarrell

1850 Marshall Co. Ind: Garrett Jerrell

1860 Marshall Co. Ind Mortality Census: Garrett Fitzgerald

1860 Marshall Co. Ind: (widow) Permelia Fitzgerald

1870 Marshall Co. Ind: Permelia Gerrall

1880 Marshall Co. Ind: Olphelia Jerrolds

Charles Hansen of Spokane shared a tip that makes finding folks in the un-Soundexed 1910 census easier: Enumerators sometimes followed the election precinct or school district boundaries, which are often found in city directories.

Then there’s the tongue-in-cheek advice by census expert Bill Dollarhide: “The U.S. census was designed to prove that your ancestor is not where he’s supposed to be.”

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