I remember reading the same information about the drunk census taker, made me a little leary of all the information on the records. On one of my family the census taker took the information from the children and it wasnot correct. and have found 59 spellings on one of my ancestor's names. sounds normal ? On Fri, 7 Feb 2003 12:24:12 EST Jcbarbra@cs.com writes: > In addition to LiveDove's explanation, some of the census takers > themselves > were semiliterate. A number of years ago I read in a census index, > (think it > was OH, but can't remember the year), a disclaimer to the effect > that the > census taker was drunk when he took the census, so proceed at your > own risk. > > In one of the censuses, my great-grandfather is listed in two > different > counties. They are adjacent, so I don't know if one of the census > takers > just strayed over the county line, or if the family moved between > one survey > and the other. Also, my grandfather's name which was Joab, was > listed as Job. > > Censuses are very helpful, but are NOT infallible. Use them as an > information source for further research. > > Barbra > > > ==== MITCHELL Mailing List ==== > DO NOT POST NON-GENEALOGICAL MATERIALS TO THIS LIST. > > > ________________________________________________________________ Sign Up for Juno Platinum Internet Access Today Only $9.95 per month! Visit www.juno.com