{"id":2691,"date":"2016-05-05T15:16:24","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T15:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=2691"},"modified":"2016-05-05T15:16:24","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T15:16:24","slug":"finding-sophia-in-1870","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=2691","title":{"rendered":"Finding Sophia in 1870"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ancestry.com<\/em> recently announced an “update” for the 1870 census and it got me to thinking about one of the people that I cannot find in 1870: Sophia Elizabeth (Derle) Trautvetter.\"sophia-trautvetter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My other two “missing” direct ancestors in 1870 are single, relatively young men\u00a0who were living in rural parts of the United States.\u00a0While I would like to find them as well, the likely scenario is that they were working somewhere as a hired man and were simply not enumerated in the census. In their cases I’m really not certain how how much I would learn from their enumeration.\u00a0\u00a0The time spent looking just may not be worth it.<\/p>\n

Sophia’s different.<\/p>\n

She would have been approximately 62 years old in 1870. She was alive in 1870 since she died in 1877 (per her tombstone at the Bethany United Church of Christ in Tioga, Hancock County, Illinois and the church entry of her death). The stone is faded and somewhat difficult to read. I went back and reviewed her death entry from the church records to confirm that it was intermingled with entries from the year 1877 and had not been misinterpreted. The year was correct. She died in 1877.<\/p>\n

She and her family (husband George and sons Michael, George, and Theodore) are enumerated in Hancock County, Illinois’s 1860 census in Rocky Run Township. The family owned a farm there and that’s where son George is enumerated in 1870. Son Michael is a newly married man living in nearby Walker Township in 1870.<\/p>\n

In 1869, George and Sophia sold their farm land in Rocky Run Township to their son George. George the father died in Germany in 1871. The church entry for his death and funeral indicated that he lived in Bad Salzungen where he had returned to live as a “retiree” due to marital difficulties. Based upon the 1869 sale of real estate, George’s death in Germany in 1871, and my inability to locate him in the 1870 US census, it’s been surmised that\u00a0he returned to Germany before the date of the 1870 census.<\/p>\n

But what of Sophia?<\/p>\n

Where is she in 1870?<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, twenty-six year old son Theodore cannot be located in 1870 either. He\u00a0clearly was alive in 1870 as he later married in 1872 (in Hancock County). He likely was with Sophia in 1870–the question is where.<\/p>\n

It is possible that Sophia and Theodore returned to Germany with George, only to come back to Illinois sometime before Theodore married in 1872. Just because George died there alone doesn’t mean he went back to Germany alone. If that’s the case, then Sophia and Theodore\u00a0should appear on a passenger manifest for the return trip. There’s no record of that either.<\/p>\n

This is one question to which I do not have an answer, so we’ll make no promises of when there is an update.<\/p>\n

Of course, I should not just search the 1870 census index at\u00a0Ancestry.com<\/em>. I should see if there are independently created indexes. And I should manually search for Sophia and Theodore in locations where they could be living, starting with Hancock County, Illinois’ Walker and Rocky Run Townships where Michael and George are living in 1870.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ancestry.com recently announced an “update” for the 1870 census and it got me to thinking about one of the people that I cannot find in 1870: Sophia Elizabeth (Derle) Trautvetter. My other two “missing” direct ancestors in 1870 are single, relatively young men\u00a0who were living in rural parts of the United States.\u00a0While I would like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[225],"class_list":["post-2691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-sophia-derle-trautvetter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}