My 2nd great grandfather Hiram Holmes was born in 1804 (according to his
gravestone) in Connecticut (according to census records from 1850 and
later). The 1855 New York State census has the wonderful question, "How
long have you lived in this place?" According to that, he settled in
Hamilton, Madison Co. around 1825.
He appears as head of household in 1850, 1855, and 1860. (He died in
1864.) But no sign of him in Madison Co. as head of household in 1830 or
1840. So where was he?
I decided to assume he was living in the household of some other Holmes. I
knew that in 1840 he would have been 36, his wife would have been 37, his
son would have been 5, and his daughter would have been newborn or perhaps
not born yet. In the 1840 census they give totals of people aged under 5,
5-10, 10-15, 15-20, 20-30, 30-40, etc. up to 90-100 and 100 & over. I
looked at all the Holmes households in Hamilton for ones with people in the
right age brackets.
Discouragingly enough, there were none. In fact, there was only one
household that had a male age 30-40, and that couldn't have been him
because that was the only adult male, i.e., the head of household: Ira
Holmes.
Waitaminute... Ira... Hiram... could it be?
"Ira's" household consisted of a male, 30-40; a male, 5-10; a female,
30-40; and a female, under 5. This hardly constitutes proof, but I believe
it's pretty likely the census taker got the name wrong and "Ira" is really
Hiram.
There are plenty of pitfalls in this sort of thing. It's entirely possible
for more than one family to have the same age profile and same or similar
head of household name. It's also possible for a family to have the
"wrong" age profile due to departures from the family (kids moving out,
deaths, etc.) or additions (births, adoptions, hired hands, etc.) or just
errors in reporting or recording. But you can at least get evidence, if not
concrete proof.
Still no idea where Hiram was in 1830, by the way. I'm still waiting for
the census film to come in.
- Rich Holmes Morris: FLYING BARK (Newport News)
hrholmes@concentric.net Genealogy: HOLMES (NY,CT), COLLINS (NY,RI),
Newport News, VA / Syracuse, NY BELDEN (NY), YORK (NY,CT), HANSEN (NY),
JOHANSEN (NY), CURRIER (NY,NJ), HAYES (NY)