Benjamin Butler is one of those problem people.

A few years ago I made a chart of the children who are enumerated in his households between 1850 and 1880. Of course, pre-1880 census enumerations do not give relationship to the head of the household and it’s possible all these children are not his. Some of them at the very least could have been children of his second wife, Nancy Wolfe. It’s also possible that what I think are two separate individuals are one and the same–just enumerated under a different name. In this case I don’t think that’s the case given the non-census details that I have, but it’s always a possibility.

Benjamin has been located in the following federal censuses:

• 1850: St. Clair County, Michigan.
• 1870: Union County, Iowa.
• 1880: Vernon County, Missouri.

I need to update the chart. That’s one of the problem with making charts like this–keeping them updated.

And while the public trees on Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, and other sites do have issues, it may be worth my time to search for these individuals in case someone has done some work on them. In some cases, this can be a lot of people to research from scratch. I’m not hoping to find more information on Benjamin using the trees, but it’s possible on his children. And, as always, I’m looking for hints in those trees–not information that I’ll use as being “established” simply because it is in the tree. Someone may have put information in a tree on one of these people that I have had difficulty finding for one reason or another.

I still have a lot of census blanks for these children.

I’m not certain my DNA results at this point will help me with Benjamin. We’ll discuss that in a future post.

And while the sources are not included in this post, I do have them. Never put down an event in a chart or other compilation without a source for it. Failing to do so can be a good way to add to your confusion.