This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------5B6B1ED55C6C4DACD8142FBC Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thought this was worth sharing Sande --------------5B6B1ED55C6C4DACD8142FBC Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Received: from bl-11.rootsweb.com (bl-11.rootsweb.com [209.85.6.27]) by good.attitude.com (2.5 Build 2640 (Berkeley 8.8.6)/8.8.4) with ESMTP id OAA00919 for <[email protected]>; Wed, 15 Mar 2000 14:34:59 -0800 Received: (from [email protected]) by bl-11.rootsweb.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id JAA13724; Wed, 15 Mar 2000 09:47:51 -0800 (PST) Resent-Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 09:47:51 -0800 (PST) From: [email protected] Old-To: [email protected] Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 11:43:20 -0500 Message-ID: <[email protected]> X-Mailer: Juno 4.0.5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-1,3-4,11-12,25-26,29-30,34-35,42-46,48,51 X-Juno-Att: 0 X-Juno-RefParts: 0 Subject: [ILSTCLAI] Re: Census Records. Resent-Message-ID: <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Resent-From: [email protected] X-Mailing-List: <[email protected]> archive/latest/1317 X-Loop: [email protected] Precedence: list Resent-Sender: [email protected] X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 Eric and Listers, Census records across the country are historic for their errors, especially when it comes to the ages of the male members of the family. You must remember not all of our ancestors came to this country because they were happy campers in their homelands. Europe during all of it's history was in and out of wars, much the same as the world is today. You need people to fight these wars and not all people wanted to be what was lovingly referred to as "Cannon Fodder". As a result of this need every country had the draft or conscription method of obtaining their fighting men. As a result many of the families came to this country to escape the mandatory military service for their children. When they got here lets assume in 1849, the very next year they were hit with a census. They just left a country where they didn't trust the government why should they trust this new guy who couldn't even speak their language? Immediately they were suspicious of the government asking about the age of their children. So the census taker was then given the age of the sons as being something less that 10 or 11 years of age. Then in 1860 these same male children were again listed but were now only 13-15 years old, they had only aged 3 to 4 years in a 10 year period. Then in 1870 these same male children were married and finally their true age is listed as 30 plus years of age. In this manner many of them did not serve in the Civil War. During the period of the census taker riding in on his horse the sons may have been sent to a neighbors house or even to another town, just to be out of sight during the period that this government man was in the area. There were no computers nor people at the time to compare names and ages, it was a long process and I would assume that if anything other than a nose count for political purposes only, not much was done with the records other than filing them in a box. For my part the census returns are almost as inaccurate as are the tombstones in a cemetery. The census is nothing more than another source, an indicator and just because it is written doesn't make it correct or accurate. All you need to do is check the way your surnames are frequently misspelled, many of these people could neither read or write so who was to check what the guy with the "Beautiful" penmanship was writing, you can't read it today. Bill Buchholz For info on cemeteries, funeral homes etc. check: http://pages.prodigy.net/dave_lossos/stl/buchholz.htm Surnames: BECKMANN-BUCHHOLZ-BUCKHOLZ-BUCHOLZ-CASSIDY-DeLONJAY-NENTWIG-NEUTZLER-PONC OT-RENSING-STAUDER-STIEFFERMANN --------------5B6B1ED55C6C4DACD8142FBC--