Creating A Census That Does Not Exist

Yesterday’s Genealogy Tip of the Day, “Take the 1890 Census You May Learn Something,” got me to thinking more about the general concept of problem-solving by “creating records” on a person of interest.

The point of the 1890 census tip was for people to think about what their relative’s 1890 census enumeration would have looked like if it had still been extant and create the enumeration themselves. It’s not a bad problem-solving exercise and it is one that can be carried to other records that cannot be found or have been destroyed as well. The point is not to make up or create information, but instead to think about what the record would say. I would even suggest that there should be a source for every piece of information placed on the theoretical 1890 census enumeration–after all it’s not being compiled from your personal memory and it is being compiled from other records.

That would make your 1890 census enumeration a secondary source.

Of course if one has no idea where the family was living or who the members in the household would have been at that point in time, the exercise is somewhat more difficult. But that’s part of why it’s a good approach. It gets one to thinking.

I could even carry the approach one step further and use the set of 1850 census questions to create a more complete imaginary 1840 or 1830 census on the family. While it won’t be possible for me to answer every question, the mere fact of thinking about who was probably living in an ancestral household in 1830 or 1840 and including the “1850 census” information about them may cause me to notice something about the family or their dynamics that has not been noticed before.  Did the family have real estate? What was the father’s occupation? Where were they living? Where were they born? Those are all good things to think about.

It is also a good organizational technique as it focuses on who was living in the same household and that’s a slight departure from the “family group” approach. While the household and family group are often the same, sometimes they are not.