A lady and I have connected our gr grandparents through a DNA project, however, through years of searching and every different spelling of their names, we have never found them on a census record anywhere--I even hired a professional to do the census check and he couldn't find anything - so, my question is, why would there be people that never show up on a census record? Has anyone else had this problem? Were the census records so inaccurate that this could happen? Anyone have any opinions on this?

My husband's great grandparents never show up - I think they are in the smeared unreadable lines, they didn't answer the door, the census taker couldn't understand them and called them the Joneses, they moved every time there was a census and they were on the road. They were invisible! To make up for it I do have 2 great uncles that are counted twice in 1900 - once at home and once on the relatives farm where they were working. Try working backwards - death/cemetery records, land records, marriage, newspapers, church records, etc. Good luck. Pam A lady and I have connected our gr grandparents through a DNA project, however, through years of searching and every different spelling of their names, we have never found them on a census record anywhere--I even hired a professional to do the census check and he couldn't find anything - so, my question is, why would there be people that never show up on a census record? Has anyone else had this problem? Were the census records so inaccurate that this could happen? Anyone have any opinions on this?