>:> > What types of records should I search to find an eighteen year old >:> > single male? >:> > >:> > jonesn8@attbi.com >:> >:> I'm afraid I don't understand your problem. Why do you need to know >:> where he was living when he was 18 years old? >:> >:> Patscga@aol.com > >Why not? If you don't find a direct ancestor in a census, aren't >you the least bit curious? Is there some reason why we should NOT >care to learn all the details that are available about the lives of >our ancestors? > >= Steve = (Steve W. Jackson) Amen, Steve! What you do and how far you go to research only depends on your personal reason for and definition of "genealogy." Some people only define it in terms of one's "lineage," with names and vital statistics dates being all that's important (much like putting together a jigsaw puzzle). Some, however, regard genealogy in an all-encompassing context that includes lineage plus history, biography, medical history, psychology, sociology, and much more...virtually anything and everything that has in some tiny way gone into making us the individuals we are today. Then there's the full range of interest in between. The approximate age of 18 has always been a fairly significant time in a person's life, as they move from childhood and the control of their parents into adulthood, responsibility for themself, and making decisions that can affect them and their descendants for eternity. Even if your interest lies only in determining basic lineage, why wouldn't you want to know where your ancestor was and what he was doing in the census when he was age 18? If nothing else, it's a common marriageable age and might lead to marriage records. Then as now, age 18 was a common age for a child to "stretch his wings and leave the nest," to "seek his fortune," or at least to reasonably establish himself on his own in life before marrying. In many instances, it was a necessity or requirement that they leave. Regardless of the reason, human nature and other circumstances being as they are around age18, a nationwide census search may be very rewarding when someone is missing at that age. It seemed like I had every possible important detail of my g-grandfather's entire life very well-covered, all in WV, and including up to a couple of years before and a couple of years after the census year, except that for some reason I just couldn't find him on that one census at about the same age18-20 (I forget exact age without looking him up). I looked in every county in the state, with no reason or suspicion whatsoever that he would have been elsewhere, except that I couldn't find him in that one year inWV. Absolutely everything else in his life occurred in WV. I eventually just set that problem aside (for years) figuring that hehad probably been missed in the census and it wasn't all that important anyway, and I went on to work on other people and lines. Years later (just a few months ago, in fact), when I was working on someone else entirely, I stumbled onto my g-grandfather in that year's census out in Illinois, living as a boarder in the home of the uncle of his future wife, and working as a well driller for oil and gas. Apparently he'd gone out there to spread his wings, sow a few oats, and make some money before taking a wife and settling down to a more stable, family-oriented life taking over his wife's WV family farm, but nobody in the family living in my time ever had a clue about those adventurous years. I certainly wouldn't want to omit such important "rights of passage" and added dimension from any of my ancestors' life stories! Diane genmail@1st.net