Monday, August 31, 2009

CENSUS DETECTIVE


Sometimes it's not easy to determine if the name you are searching is your ancestor. You have to look at all the surrounding facts to make decision. I started to see a pattern about a year ago.

All the family trees I have found for my Curtiss line say that Alfred Hatch Curtiss is my G-G-Grandfather. I followed A. H. Curtiss starting in the 1850 Census. He had a son named Leroy. I had a suspicion that Leroy was a Junior, so I followed his as though he was Alfred Leroy. His siblings names and birth dates continued through the 1870.

Another clue was the other Curtisses on the same Census page. I also noticed the A. H. Curtiss seemed to have another Curtiss always on the Census with him. H. H. Curtiss married to a Verilla /Vanilla / etc. (you can't trust the census for spelling)

Another clue came with the 1880 Census. I knew from living relatives that our Curtiss family migrated from St. Joseph, Missouri to California. In searching the Buchanan Co. Census I found an A.L. Curtiss married to M.E. living with C. Darby. I know this was my A.L. Curtiss because his wife's maiden name was Darby. In following this Curtiss family 1900, 1910 and 1920 Census records I confirmed my relatives by the names I knew as my Grandparents and Aunts.

The final clue came when I found a notation in my very own Baby Book. My Grandmother had supplied the names of my Great Grandparents to my mother for the Curtiss side. There it was - "Leroy". My GGrandfather was called Leroy just as I had suspected. Because of this entry I now knew that my GGGrandfather was Alfred H. Curtiss.

This chart shows the continuous flow of Census records with some notations.



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