Dear Haines, If you went to the 1825 State Census listing whose location I gave you, you will have found that no Benjamin Brown was listed in Hector Town. The 1825 and 1835 enumerations were State Census, whereas of course the 1820, 1830 were US Decennial Census enumerations. New York is just one of the States that did its own enumerations for specific purposes. The USGenWeb site for New York State, County Selection page, gives you the geopolitical history of each County. Tompkins was formed in 1817 from parts of Cayuga and Seneca. While there were itnerlopers at times, this part of NY had practically no settlers until after the Treaty of Ft. Stanwix, 1794. Read up on the history of the Military Townships to get more insight as to how the Towns were set up. Hector and Ulysses have somewhat complicated histories related to the Military Townships. Try the Revolutionary War research tutorial available from Rootsweb.com's home page, and about.com for some leads. Not finding people in the Decennial or State Census lists does not mean they were not there. Both of the above up to 1850 only list head of household. If your Benjamin was a hand working for someone and living with them, he would probably not be listed as head of household. The 1830s were a turbulent time. A bad depression and the bank collapse 'panic of 1837' were related reasons that people were on the move, looking for livelihood. Some of our more frustrating-to-research ancestors may have lived only a year or two (or less) in a given place in this period. Good hunting, Judy

Judy, Thank you for your very helpful reply. I was finally able to resolve the problem of years when I realized that the 1825 and 1835 census was a state census, and the 1820, 30, 40 census was a federal census. I gather NY held those censuses because of its interest in the agricultural economy. Since I don't really know the location of my Brown, and there are so many around in the early 19th century Tompkins Co., I rely on the census. I've got some records to track down from the federal census, but the state census is more challenging. In 1991 the Tompkins County Genealogical Society published The New York State Census for Tomplins County (available in the Tompkins Co. library and I supposed elsewhere), but this book is described as an "abstract". I'm not sure if it is an alphabetized index, a non-alphabetized list of heads of household without agricultural information, or a copy of the entire record. I will do as you suggest and pursue the Revolutionary War research tutorial available from Rootsweb.com's home page, and about.com. There was one Brown who received Bounty Land in the town of Lansing, but I don't know if there's any relation to my own Brown. What I've read on the Military Tracts suggest there were a lot of land transfers and simple land speculation. There's no reason to assume my Brown, even if it turns out he owned a Military Tract, was descended from a Revolutionary War fighter. My Benjamin may indeed have been classified as a hired hand within someone else's family even if we were married and the father of children. However, I have reason to suspect he worked on the steam ferry boat transiting Lake Cayuga. In 1838 he moved to Camden apparently only because his occupation at the time (1840) was "engineer" and in the 1830s a steam ferry service was established between Camden and Philadelphia. Thank you again for all your help and encouragement. Haines Brown