This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: ed57176 Surnames: Classification: census Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.gibson/5616.2.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: I'm not 100% certain on this one. There is a chance this record is not Elisha. Still, it fits closely enough to share and ask for others to review. I have been looking a long time to find Elisha's 1850 US Census record, hoping that it would provide the needed connection to his parents. I think I have found the elusive 1850 census record, but unfortunately it does not connect Elisha to his parents. Attached is a file containing the image of this record. I got this from familysearch.org. Their images of the 1850 Tazewell county census are sometimes so poorly exposed that they are almost illegible. I had to take this one into an image editor and darken it a bit to make it easier to read. Anyway, back to the record. Toward the bottom of the page is a record for "E Gibson." The biggest problem with the record is that it lists the age of E Gibson as 20. Elisha would have been 18, almost 19 at the time of this census. Now, if we can accept this age as being some sort of honest mistake, then rest of the record fits pretty well. The first detail in support of this record actually being Elisha is that I went through 220 pages of Tazewell county census for 1850, and this was the only male E Gibson of near the correct age in the entire set. There was a Samuel Gibson, age 18, son of Samuel, born in "Pa" elsewhere in the records, but that would only work if one wants to think the "S" in Elisha S. Gibson stands for Samuel instead of Scroggins and ignore the "Pa" birthplace. I decided the E Gibson record was more likely than the Samuel Gibson record. The second detail in support of the E Gibson record was the birthplace. I believe it reads "In" for Indiana, which if accurate, is another data point in favor of Indiana rather than Ohio as ESG's birthplace. Next, this record lists E Gibson's occupation as "blacksmith." According to the biography of Oscar Henby, one of ESG's son-in-laws, Elisha Gibson was a blacksmith by trade. It appears E Gibson is living with the John Baker (I think it is Baker - kinda hard to read) family. John is older and also has "blacksmith" as his occupation. This would likely make E Gibson John's apprentice. That's my take on this record. Assuming this is Elisha, then it positively places Elisha in Tazewell county about two years before his marriage to Ann Maria. I also looked at all 168 pages of the Washington County, IL 1850 census and did not find any reasonable matches to Elisha - in my opinion this supports my theory that Elisha's parents always lived in Washington Township, Tazewell, IL rather than Washington County, IL as indicated by his obituary. Comments on this are welcome. Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.