As part of my work on French-Canadian Joseph Desmarais (Demarrah, Demar, etc.), I tried to locate him in the 1850 US census. His later census enumerations suggested that the family should have been enumerated in the 1850 census somewhere.

While the location of his 1850 enumeration was unknown, it seemed logical that he would be in Clinton County at that time. After all, he was in Clinton County in 1860 and 1870 census and was also a part of the French-Canadian community in the area.

An entry was located in the 1850 census for Clinton County that appears to match the 1860 census enumeration for Joseph. The only exception is that the last name is Lamer.

Joseph’s age is consistent with the later enumerations for Joseph Desmarais (1860-1880).

Sarah’s age is not consistent with later enumerations for Sarah Desmarais–it is approximately ten years off. Those later enumerations (1860-1880) are consistent with each other.

Alexander does not appear with the family in later census records–his age difference from the other children makes one wonder if he’s actually the child of both parents, was even their child of one of them, or has a completely wrong age.

Charles and Rosella both have ages (and names) that appear consistently with the family of Joseph and Sarah Desmarais in later censuses.

When I first saw this entry, I was certain it was the right bunch of people and the census taker simply copied down “Demar” as “Lemar” when writing up  his clean copy of the census.

Now, I’m slightly less certain, but still think it’s probably him. However, I need to tie things up a little more concretely.

Here’s what I need to do:

• create charts with the family structure of Joseph and Sarah Desmarais–including ages and places of birth to compare with this entry
• determine if a Joseph Lemar is listed under that name in a 1860 census anywhere. It is possible that the name really is Lemar and not Demar. Of course then I’d have to keep searching for Joseph Desmarais.

If I still think it could be the family of interest, then I need to explain that Alexander as well.