Sound genealogy methodology requires that conclusions be revisited when new information is obtained.

That’s exactly what I had to do with an 1850 census enumeration from Campbell County, Kentucky. The three older adults are:

• Michael Trautvetter
• Margaret Trautvetter–wife of Michael
• Adam Trautvetter–brother of Michael

The relationships are not stated in the enumeration,but are known from church records in Bad Salzungen, Thuringia, Germany, where the brothers were born and a separation agreement between Michael and Margaret filed in the Campbell County, Kentucky, land records.

But Fountain?

For sometime Fountain Sense was believed to have been Valentine Hess. Valentine Hess was a nephew of the Trautvetter brothers–a son of their sister Ernestine (Trautvetter) Hess who was referenced in Michael’s 1869 estate settlement in Hancock County, Illinois. It was concluded that since the first name was clearly “off” (Fountain for Valentine) that the last name was clearly off as well (Sense for Hess).

It turns out that conclusion was wrong.

Fountain Sense is most likely a nephew of the Trautvetters, but not the son of their sister Ernestine. Instead, church records Wohlmuthausen, Germany, indicate that the Trautvetter brothers’ sister Wilhelmine was married to a Johann Valentin Senf and their son Johann Valentin Senf was born there on 25 November 1837. That birth date is consistent with age listed for Fountain Sense in the 1850 census enumeration.

And Sense is a more more reasonable variant for Senf than it is for Hess.

But I didn’t have the Senf information at the time.

Conclusions are always subject to revision when more information is located. What may make perfect sense with what you have may not turn out to be correct when more information has been located.

The only problem? Now Valentine Hess is missing.