Rich Holmes wrote: > > I'll be interested in seeing replies to your question, but let me tell you > my own story... > > 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) > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------> GEN-NYS-L Subscribers -- Visit the GEN-NYS-L web page: > http://www.rootsweb.com/~nozell/GEN-NYS-L/ > ------------------------------------------------------------------------Rich
Is it possible that he just did not participate in the census during that
time?
Laurie Manell Kiriakou
u1009713@warwick.net