This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Murlin Leasor/Leazer Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/2AB.2ACI/5168.1.1.1.3 Message Board Post: I have been puzzled for awhile about the extent of Little York in the 1820 census. I have ancestors and a number of related collateral lines that all came from Ontario County, New York around 1818 to settle on land they bought from Gideon Granger in what is now southern Hardin County around the communities of Sonora and Upton. They appear in the 1820 census as enumerated in the district of Little York. I have a theory to suggest about Little York and would appreciate any comments - this post got very long and kind of tedious trying to be exact, and this may be a silly idea, so be warned. The reason I assume that my families were in the district of Little York in the 1820 census is because the census indexes tell me they were. But if you look at the microfilmed/digitized census records themselves, you can see that they are hand-written and poorly labeled. Ancestry.com assumes that Hardin county is divided into 3 "townships" - Elizabethtown, Little York, and Philadelphia, and you can click on one of those places and browse through the pages - I find my Murlins and related families in Little York. Heritage Quest Online divides the county up into 4 locations - Elizabeth[sic], Little York, Philadelphia, and "No twp listed". If I use the index they supply, my Murlins/Merlins are once again indexed as part of Little York. However, if I look at the Heritage Quest Online version of the original census, very few of the pages have any place identification on them at all (you can't do this with the Ancestry.com pages, because in the digitized images they cut off the margins). Specifically, if you go to the first page labeled as Little York (page 6 according to HQ Online's paging, which is also stamped as page 12 on the left side of the page image), you find 2 place names written in the left margin. At the top is "Philadelphia", apparently carried over from the previous page. There is a horizontal line under Philadelphia in the margin that divides the names in that location from the names listed for Little York (only Ann Harkness[?] and Thomas Stevenson - and a crossed out name) belong in Philadelphia. The next 10 names after Stevenson and the horizontal line are Hurd, Seely, Brown, Kidder, Hurd, Clarke, Stone, Root, Watterman and Dupey/Dupry[?]. Written in the margin next to these names is the place "Little York". However, there is another horizontal line in the margin under the words "Little York" that divides these 10 names from the names that follow on that page - Shaver, Garret?, Connor, Richardson, Stewart, Hunt... and so forth to the bottom of the page. I looked at the next 10 census pages, and none of them are labeled at all. Is it possible that the first person who ever indexed the census missed that little horizontal line separating every one else from Little York? Little York apparently disappeared after it lost its status as county seat of Meade County. Is it possible that only 10 families were living in the village itself when the 1820 census was taken? Someone who is more familiar with the local area and research in early records may be able to address this issue. Also, it would probably help if someone who has access to Heritage Quest Online or census microfilm could confirm what I think I see. My theory can be blown away if the answer to the following question is "Yes": Does anyone who has family in southern Hardin County find that Little York is used as a geographic reference in any local records -- like deeds, court records, tax records, etc -- other than the 1820 census? I think that my southern Hardin County families should probably be enumerated under the place name "no township listed" instead of Little York. Linda