At 05:16 PM 10/30/2001 -0500, Omeda Brewer wrote: >Maybe someone with more experience with census records can answer this >question for me. 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"? I have >been looking for my 3rd gr,grandfather and I absolutely know he was in the >portion of Surry Co that became Yadkin in 1850 and was in Yadkin Co in 1860. >He died 1862. I know his house stood on the ground that is now the cemetery >where he is buried. I have found a lot of entries unoccupied in that area >but he is not listed anywhere after 1840. Neither is he listed in any of the >indexes. Any suggestions? I'm not an expert by any means, but I've never seen labels like "unoccupied," or "vacant." Sometimes a neighbor gave the information about who lived there (which helps explain why some of the information can be so far off, or vary so wildly from one census to the next), sometimes it seems like the residence was simply ignored completely. And it appears on some occasions, that rather than going door-to-door, that the census taker may have set up shop at the courthouse or post office, and tried to get everyone to come to him. So, not surprisingly, the census records are frequently inaccurate and incomplete. I've got a family group that doesn't appear in any census, ever. Apparently good old Elijah had no desire whatsoever to talk to a census taker <g>. And he didn't! He appears in other records (apparently getting a deed to his land seemed important to him), but there's absolutely no census record for him... Angie Rayfield Roots & Branches http://www.inmyattic.com/roots/