Some census takers followed instructions to the letter. Others did not–sometimes because the census taker had a mind of their own and other times because the respondent failed to answer the question in a standard way.

That’s probably what happened with “Belarn Janson” of Adams County, Illinois’ Houston Township in 1880. It’s more likely that his name was something relatively close to Behrend Janssen. Houston Township was full of settlers from Ostfriesland, Germany, and that rendering of his names appears to be more true to the census taker’s handwriting and the respondent’s probable ethnicity than “Belarn Janson.” The fact that there’s only one Belarn in the entire 1880 census should be a clue that the name may be transcribed incorrectly.

But this post really is not about his name. 

It’s about his place of birth: Zurich. It’s also the place of birth listed for his wife whose name appears to be an English attempt to render the low-German Vo(h)lke or Fo(h)lke.

Respondents in 1880 were supposed to provide countries of birth when born outside the United States. Zurich certainly is not a country.

And Zurich most likely is not where Janssen or his wife were born.

Upon closer inspection, the place of birth appears to be Aurich. It’s the place of birth for the parents of everyone in the Janssen household (as well as Janssen and his wife). As the census taker wrote the word the initial letter more closely resembles an upper-case “A.” As one of the larger towns in Ostfriesland, it certainly makes sense. And it certainly makes more sense that Zurich. It’s just that the transcriber had heard of Zurich and probably had not heard of Aurich.

Because Janssen’s place of birth is entered in the database as Zurich, searching for him with a birth place of Germany fails to bring the desired result. One has to search for him born in Switzerland because that’s where Zurich is. All because one letter gets read incorrectly.

One of Janssen’s neighbors also gave a non-standard place of birth when the 1880 census taker came through Houston Township. His answer also creates search problems when using location based searches in the 1880 census.

We’ll have that story in a future post.

Note: the 1880 census transcription at Ancestry.com is the one that was originally done by FamilySearch. Their transcribers were instructed to render the census as it appeared to them–instead of trying to make the places “fit” those listed in a database of locations-which is how most other Ancestry.com census indexes are created.