At 10:19 PM 10/30/01 -0600, Angie Rayfield wrote: >At 05:16 PM 10/30/2001 -0500, Omeda Brewer wrote: >><snip> >>If a person is not at home when the census taker arrives, >>do they just skip over it or do they ever use the term "unoccupied"? <snip> >I'm not an expert by any means, but I've never seen labels like >"unoccupied," or "vacant." S On the 1860 Lawrence County, TN census there are several entries of "Unoccupied." I was just checking out Civil District 7 and came upon the GOWER family followed by "Unoccupied - W. K. Lindsey place" followed by "Unoccupied - James Kelso land" followed by "Unoccupied - Also James Kelso Land." The following was the HARDISON family with her mother, Elizabeth DUGGER, living there too; this was followed by "Unoccupied - Williamson house on G. W. Hardison land." The next household was that of Simon Hardison followed by B. W. CLEEK (the name I was looking up). The next household was "Unoccupied - Jno. Fields or C. M. McGee place" immediately followed by "Unoccupied - Jno. McClain house on Kelly land." The next household was that of Michael CLEEK then that of Ezra HARDISON. Following was "Unoccupied - Ezra Hardison land" then "Unoccupied - Sidney Crews house on Kelly land." Going back several pages I found "Unoccupied - Sam Williams house on W. P. Williams land" followed by "Unoccupied - James Joyce house on J. A. Hagen land" then the household of Samuel Williams followed by "Unoccupied - Widow Scholes place." Unless I'm badly mistaken, the Widow Scholes had moved to Kentucky to the home of her son Richard (she died before the 1870 census). Bottom line: some census takers made marvelous notes on their forms. Some didn't. Pat