> I am trying to track a relative who is listed in the 1850 census in > Boone Co., MO. Among his neighbors are siblings, parents, cousins. > By 1860 the extended family is dispersed to 3-4 neighboring > counties, and I can find everybody except my guy. I am confident he > remained in the area past 1860. He does not appear anywhere in the > ancestry.com index and I have browsed the census pages in the > communities of his relatives to no avail. So a few questions: what > percentage of people might have been missed by the 1860 census > takers? On the chance he was no longer in the area, what percentage > of people are omitted in ancestry.com's index? Any clues on how to > proceed? > > Susan Moeur <[email protected]> Susan, The census indices that Ancestry uses for up to the 1870 census have been around in hard copy form for decades. They are notoriously not good. In fact, in the preface of one set the company who compiled the data talks about "possible errors" yada, yada, yada, and the states there may be as much as a 25% error factor! I wish I could get paid for being wrong that often! <g> Be that as it may, those same indices do NOT show my immigrant ancestor for the 1850, 1860, nor 1870 census. Yet, I finally found him in each one of the census. I used microfilm (vs. on-line) and I had to scroll through sheet by sheet for NYC in 1850 and New Orleans in 1870, but I found him. He just wasn't in the indices. I vaguely recall Ancestry was going to redo those indices, or check them, or something, but I couldn't swear to anything. If you can't find your ancestor in the census index, he's probably in the census and not missed. The census taker missing people was not as often occurring as people believe. Good luck, LGO LGO <[email protected]>