Sunday, December 30, 2007

Interesting Household

I'm transcribing the 1850 Bullitt County, Kentucky census right now trying to reach 10,000 before tomorrow night. I decided it might be attainable if I worked on it enough. I found an interesting household. The household is that of Nathan Harris. It's a pretty typical farm household in most aspects. The reason I found it interesting is that Nathan (age 29) has a son Smith in his household. Now that's a name that you just don't see that often as a first name, but my gg-grandfather Walton A. Harris (b. 1812 in KY) also named one of his sons' Smith Harris. I have little reason geographically to believe that Nathan could be one of Walton's unidentified brothers, but I will eventually pursue it just to check it out just because of the son's name.

The other thing that is interesting about the household is that one of the two "boarders" (I'm calling them that since relationships are not stated in the 1850 census and the surname is different) has a rather interesting occupation. It is "learning English." Theodore Castelman, age 22, was born in France. It's a shame that many of today's immigrants no longer feel the need to learn the language of the country in which they are residing.

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