My friends - We are going to close out this week's data posts with another in the Skills Puzzler series. I try to alternate the Puzzlers with the Tips series, but I have this "extra" Puzzler at hand, and I am going to go ahead and present it, and then we will get caught up on the Tips series next time around. Every genealogist, if he/she works at it for awhile, will be presented with situations in which it really appears that an ancestor did not know what state in which he/she was born. When the census population schedules began to ask for the state of birth, we often see an ancestor state, for example, in the 1850 census, that he was born in KY, then, in 1860, he says he was born in VA, and, perhaps in the 1870 census, he tells the census taker that he was born in North Carolina or Tennessee. In many cases, we are unable to determine why these various places of birth were given in different census years, for the same person. Occasionally, however, if we know what we are looking for, we can explain a few of these occurrences. Our scenario involves Josiah Jackson. According to some of his descendants, as well as one document dated 1821(a small piece of paper which the family had in their possession, apparently torn out of a book, with the year written, and the words, "Josah Jackson born AD 21 April 1786 Wayne Co., North Car") he was born in Wayne County, NC in 1786. He lived to the ripe old age of 94 and died in Johnson County, TN in 1880. In the 1850 census of that county, he returned his place of birth as NC. In 1860, he indicated he was born in TN and in 1870, he also said TN. In the 1880 census - and he was still alive when the census taker came around, he said he was born in NC. His granddaughter, who knew him well, insisted, years later, that he told her numerous times that he was born in TN. On the other hand, a county history with Josiah's biographical sketch in it, states that he was born in NC. Our task, using only what we have above, is to make a determination as to which of the two states - NC or TN - was most probably the place of his birth, and why we come to that conclusion. If you would like to opine on this one, you can send it to the List, or to me privately. I'll return with the solution over the weekend. As is customary, there will be no data posts per se on Saturday or Sunday, but I hope to be able to get another file of some type prepared and offered, if time permits. -B ============================================================