So, for example, three sons of my ancestor Edward Uptegrove dropped the first part of their surname and became simply Groves in the 1810 to 1830 censuses. People could simply decide to call themselves Jack instead of John, even on official documents like the census, and then change back again 10 or 20 years later. Our forebears were much more casual about their identities than we are. I’ve frequently given thanks for names like Ladoiska, Sophianesba and Camillus in my family tree-and especially my ancestors’ fondness for names beginning with Z (Zeno, Zillis, Zebulan, Zeriah, Zilphia …). In this and other instances where you’re searching for someone other than your target ancestor, of course, it’s smart to select someone with a more unusual name, if possible. Your ancestor might be “hiding” in plain sight on the same page as these folks. Sometimes different sources have different transcriptions-and sure enough, FamilySearch’s 1850 census has him correctly transcribed as James Lowe.Īnother approach to transcription errors and other puzzles is to search for relatives or neighbors from a city directory or the previous or subsequent census, then scroll up or down. Lowe today, I could search census databases on other sites, such as FamilySearch or MyHeritage. I also could have tried Low*, which would have retrieved variants with any number of characters, from Low to Lowell to Lowenstein and so on. This wildcard search retrieved all possible four-letter hits beginning with Low. (Most sites let you use an asterisk wildcard to replace zero or more characters in a name, and a question mark to replace a single character.)Īnd a wildcard search did ultimately find my hidden ancestor: I searched for Low? and there he was, right in Harris County, Ga., with the correct family members. The problem? The way searching worked at the time, the site didn’t think Lowd was a possible variation of Lowe (or Low, for that matter).Įven using wildcard characters was tricky with such a short surname, because requires that names contain at least three non-wildcard characters. I tried all the usual spelling variations, adding and subtracting search data. But when I first looked for him, his entry refused to be found.
Lowe shows up in indexes of the 1850 census as “Lowd,” which would seem like a simple error to overcome.
We’ll go over seven problems that can trip up even the most intense census search, and show you how to overcome them. Understanding these common enumeration mistakes and how they affect your searches in online census records can help you find even the most elusive ancestors. Our families might have neglected to pass down correct information about where Grandma lived in 1920, or a transcriber may have misread the enumerator’s handwriting. For example, Mary Todd Lincoln was listed as 28 years old in the 1850 census, but only 35 in 1860 as her husband began campaigning for president. Ages might be rounded off to the nearest decade, or fudged to be more flattering. Human weakness and imprecision are often to blame: Spelling wasn’t always our forebears’ strong suit. More likely, though, your ancestors are in the census, but hiding in an unexpected place or with a strange name.