Thoughts on Census Occupations

If you've ever looked at census records from Southern states, you know that the majority of the persons enumerated have a single occupation that was listed variously as "Farmer," "Farm laborer," "Farm hand," "Works on farm," etc. Occasionally on a big plantation, you'll run across "Overseer" but you know that person also worked on the farm.

Today as I was transcribing 1870 Massachusetts census records in the town of Plymouth, I was reminded of how varied occupations were in the north. I did have one farmer and one farm laborer on that page, but I had several mariners. (I wondered if the oldest one was the famed "ancient mariner," although I knew Coleridge was an English author and that his mariner predated this one. However, I did wonder if others in the town associated the poem with this man.) There was one person who was listed as working for the "shoe man." I don't know if this meant he sold shoes or worked in shoe repair or both. It was an interesting occupations though. The Superintendent of Schools was also on this page. It was interesting that this man had been born in Jolly Old England rather than in the states. One man worked in an iron foundry. Most of the women were listed as keeping houses. Most of the older children were "attending school" while the younger ones were "at home." A few young ladies had "no occupation." My favorite occupation on that first page was "paper box maker."

On the next page I indexed, I found a brick mason, an engineer, a bookkeeper, a rope manufacturer (I'll bet those mariners visited his business quite a bit), a locomotive engineer, a huckster (I'm picturing Mr. Haney from Green Acres in a much earlier incarnation), and two farm laborers and two farmers. Interestingly, the first laborer was an African-American--the first black family I'd encountered in indexing Plymouth. (This family, however, was born in Massachusetts rather than the South.)

In nearby Wauham Wareham, my next page yielded a couple of wharf workers (one of whom was a black man born in North Carolina; he was probably a former slave who migrated north after being freed), a mariner, several Irish iron works employees, and a stevedore (someone who unloaded and loaded the ships). There was actually what was likely a boarding house full of Irish workers for the iron works on this page!

One can actually learn a lot about a community by paying attention to the various occupations enumerated on a census. These communities definitely had occupations in keeping with their waterfront locations. The presence of a locomotive engineer means that the railroads were becoming an important means of getting goods from the shipyards to the outlying areas and the rest of the country.

My next batch is taking me to a different part of Massachusetts so I'll end my thoughts for now. I'm sure that I'll be able to tell as much about this next community as I was the others (and even those Southern communities where farming was the driving force).

Okay - I can't resist one more occupation that I ran across later because I'd never seen it listed as an occupation before (especially for 1870)--trance medium. I did find this person listed in the 1900 census as a "lecturer."

Mail

You just never know what you are going to find when you go out to your mailbox. I had 4 pieces of mail today. One was one of those credit card offers. Another was an offer for a home equity line of credit. One was Southern Living's latest issue. The last piece of mail was the most exciting though. It was from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration. Okay - it was from the U.S. Census Bureau. It seems that my household (The letter made sure it let me know that it wasn't me individually but my address) has been randomly chosen to complete one of those American Community Surveys. The survey should arrive soon. I actually had one of the long forms in 2000 although I was living at a different address then. Since Hamblen County is roughly the size of Greene County (Hamblen is slightly smaller) and Greene County's sample rate is posted, I can assume that I'm one of no more than 644 households selected in our county to take the survey. This, of course, is any genealogist's dream--to be chosen to participate in these surveys which, if kept and made available in 72 years, will be useful to future generations of family historians! Now . . . I have another piece of mail to look forward to receiving!

Enumerate Me Challenge

I saw this challenge at Randy's. I'll confess that because "Lori" is a fairly recent name that I'd never thought to look for it in the census; however, I hit the comprehensive search button at Ancestry.com to see what I could find with "Lori Thornton." There were 2 hits for "Lori Thornton" in the 1920 census, but since one of them was "Ella Lori Thornton" and that is definitely not me, I decided to stick to the only one that was just "Lori Thornton." There was a 6-year-old Lori Thornton living in Riverside, California with parents Joseph E. and Florence Thornton. (Of course, the parents' names are wrong for me.) This Lori's father was born in West Virginia and the mother in Tennessee. I have no known West Virginia ancestry on my Thornton line. Those were the only hits on census records for my name. I am surprised to find any at all.

Musings on the Census

Tonight I was transcribing a little bit of the 1870 Craighead County, Arkansas census for FamilySearchIndexing.org. I came across two items that gave me a chuckle. The first was a female who was born in the state of Tennessee whose name was Alabama. Obviously they didn't play football back then because no loving parent in Tennessee would have named their daughter Alabama if that rivalry had been in existence back then! The second was an occupation. As you know, relationships were generally not stated on censuses before 1880. There was one woman whose occupation was listed as "aged mother." I wonder what were the details of her "job description" as there were two servants in the household. She was only 66. I know life expectancy was shorter then, but if we called a 66-year-old woman "aged" nowadays we might be in "hot water."

2010 Census at Risk

There are problems with the 2010 census.

The 2010 Census is at serious risk of massive cost increases and delays caused by problems with a contract to develop handheld computers that the Census Bureau plans to use to collect data.

Later in the article is this line:

"So serious is the crisis that if it is not dealt with immediately, it could threaten the integrity of the 2010 count," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in his opening statement at the hearing. "We now find ourselves facing a situation in which we might have to revert to conducting the census entirely by paper -- no differently than it was done in the 19th century."

I sincerely hope we don't revert to early 19th century censuses. Can you imagine having only counts of the number of people within certain age groups by sex? As a researcher, I'd prefer the early 20th century model if we have to go back to written censuses. Instead of check-marks for radios, they could have check-marks for Blu-Ray DVDs, iPhones, or iPods.

Mortality Schedules

I wish that all my ancestors had the forethought to die in a year where their death would be recorded in a mortality schedule. I was fortunate to have a couple who were kind to provide me with their cause of death. Barbara Yoder Lantz died of consumption in 1870. John Hester died in 1879 of erisypelas. I really began thinking of the mortality schedules with the onset of the flu epidemic. I knew that I had seen influenza listed as a cause of death among them. The CDC's map for this week (dated February 9) shows widespread outbreaks in all but 6 states. Five of those other states (Oregon, Utah, Missouri, Rhode Island, and Maine) show regional outbreaks. Florida shows local outbreaks. Schools here in East Tennessee have been cancelling classes because of illness. I heard that it was so bad that the substitute teachers were calling substitutes before some of the districts closed.

I decided to explore a few of the transcribed schedules available online to see what causes were recorded.

In the 1850 mortality schedule for Potter County, Pennsylvania, we see the usual entries for dysentery, "tyfus" fever, croup, child birth, dropsy, consumption, various types of influenza, etc., but we also see some rather interesting causes of death. Nine month old Mary Ellis died from "eating caterpillars." Sarah A. Hitchcock died because she "choked on a bean." Two year old Mary Lawton "swallowed a brass button" and apparently was sick for 60 days from her accident before dying. There is also an unfortunate drowning of two year old Lorinda Nichols recorded.

Scarlet fever appears to have ravaged the population of Grayson County, Virginia according to its 1860 mortality schedule. We also see old age, croup, dropsey, pneumonia, influenza, and cancer among the causes of death. Ten year old Amanda W. Delp died from a fall.

The 1870 Jefferson County, Colorado schedule also gives us a few causes. We have a still born baby on the list and a few infants whose cause of death is listed as "debility." We have eye cancer, stomach and bowel influenza, lung fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, old age, and even a sore throat among the culprits. However, the most interesting entry is 3 month old Samuel Derby's "gravel."

Wright County, Iowa also has some interesting deaths. In their 1870 schedule, a 34 year old carriage maker by the name of Joseph Fulton was "killed in machinery." Nine year old George A. Peterson was "killed by eating ?" I'd love to know what that question mark was that he ate! Even if this transcription did not have a footnote describing the tragedy, one could look and see that the four deaths due to drowning in April 1870 must be from one incident. Dudley Gelman (age 65), William Rowen (age 30), Robert P. Rowley (age 35), and George Royce (age 28) apparently tried crossing the Iowa River when it was too high. Their 1880 census records Andrew Nelson's being crused in a sorghum mill and 10 year old Sherman Slaight's being "struck by Capston Sweep?" I don't know what a Capston Sweep is, but I don't think I'd like to be struck by one.

Roane County, Tennessee's 1880 schedule yields the murder of Dick Woods (age 38). Same Jones (age 35) was lynched. William Burnett (age 23) died of a pistol shot. Three year old William Sharp was burned. One year old Laura Renshaw died of worms and teething. That's the first time I've seen teething listed as a cause of death. John Keyhole (age 21) died from a kiln. John Eaton (age 12) was killed by cars on the railroad. James H. Day (age 30) "fell from trestel." One day old Bertheny Clark was "hurt by midwife." There is also a wide variety of disease listed among those enumerated.

Don't forget to check out the mortality schedules for the areas where your ancestors lived. They may add to your picture of what life was like for them in those days.

Today's Tasks

Today, I spent most of the day doing some much needed sorting and filing. Every now and then I'd stop to enter some source that caught my eye into my genealogical database if it had not been marked "entered." I also discovered that some stuff that I thought I'd entered was not in my database. There are two explanations for that, and the most likely is that I really did enter it, but it was in the period of time when my database wasn't saving correctly (and it wasn't readily apparent to me that it wasn't in the files from which I'd restore stuff). The other is that I didn't enter it, but I remember entering the stuff about Dime Box, Texas. Now, I'm going to have to enter all of that over again--but that's a project for another day. I also did a couple of batches for FamilySearchIndexing.org. One of the batches was a 1905 South Dakota census. That was interesting. I got 20 cards in the batch. Each person was reported on a separate card instead of all on a single sheet. The other was an 1850 batch from Franklin County, Maine. I loved it. The last family I indexed had the surname "Snowman." No - none of them were named Frosty! I may do a couple more batches before I head off to bed.

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.

Census Challenge

Miriam, over at AnceStories, is challenging us to tell future generations where we are hiding in the censuses. I'm not telling my specific age, but I'll just say that I was in Amory, Mississippi through the 1980 census. By 1990, I was in Cincinnati, Ohio. By 2000, I was in Morristown, Tennessee, where you'll be pleased to know that I received a long census form to fill out.

Apologies for Lack of Posting

Wow . . . I just realized that it's been over a week since I posted. I've been busy. Can you tell? I was having headaches over last weekend and earlier this week. I think those have settled down. I've also been extremely busy at work and at church this week. I probably worked with over 1000 cataloging records for government documents this week in addition to teaching several students to repair books and other miscellaneous things that technical services librarians do. When I had the headaches, I just didn't feel like getting on the computer at night. I did index a few census records this week. Last night I came across one family where the mother was born in the summer of the year, and it said that the person born in the fall of that year was her son! That has to be a record. I think she was 3 months old when she gave birth if that was true. I believe that one was in Adams County, Mississippi, but it could have been an Arkansas record. Needless to say, I had a little chuckle as I keyed that information.

Robbing the Cradle

I've been indexing the 1900 Jefferson County, Mississippi today for FamilySearchIndexing.org. I have to say that I found some rather interesting data on the census. My first shocker was finding a 21-year-old man married to a 26-year-old woman who claimed to have been married 10 years with an 8-year-old child. Now, either they lied so the enumerator would think they were married when that baby was born, or there was some cradle-robbing going on. The bad thing is that was not the worst. There is a 50-year-old man married to a 37-year-old woman who claims to have been married 30 years. She married at age 7? Perhaps he'd been married for a total of 30 years between two marriages, but we either have a big error here or a definite case of robbing the cradle.

That Page Just Gets Better . . .

On the same page with Harry Potter in the 1900 White Co., Ill. census is a Joe Murphy who is not a cat, but a servant. This page is just full of literary illusions! If I want to create a successful character for a series of books, I think I'd better check this page!

Harry Potter is older than you think!

While indexing for FamilySearchIndexing.org, I got a batch from White County, Illinois for 1900. There was a 9 year old Harry Potter whose parents were Samuel and Elizabeth. One of his brothers was named Elvis!

BRRRRRR . . .

It's cold! It's finally made it to 38 today, but when I woke up it was only 24. It had snowed overnight. It even snowed a little more this morning. I had to wait awhile before removing the cover from my plants because it was just too cold before sunrise to do it. Yesterday, they were saying it could be as cold as 15 tonight. Then they adjusted it to 18. Now it appears they think it will only get to 22. This is the coldest "Dogwood Winter" I've seen in a long time. We're setting record lows (or coming close).

In the midst of the cold, I decided to do a little indexing. This morning I was able to get one batch in Itawamba County, Mississippi where ancestors lived and one batch in Walker County, Alabama where ancestors lived. They ran out of Mississippi and Alabama so I decided to just hit the random choice. I've been indexing New York state. For the most part, it is very readable. I had one batch that was a little illegible, but most of them have been good writing. It's very interesting to see the ethnic composition of the communities. I've mostly had batches out of Warren and Ulster Counties. In Warren, I've had a lot of Irish and French Canadians. I've also had some Swedes and Norwegians among those I've indexed today. The most humorous location was given under the birth location of the named person's father. The birthplace was listed as "Road Island." It made me wonder if my Rathbone (also spelled Rathbun) ancestors who settled Block Island, Rhode Island in 1661 ever spelled it that way!