08 August 2011

Were They Alive Then?

Before you spend time looking for someone in a census record, make certain they were living at the time. I realize that occasionally someone who has been dead gets enumerated in a census, but someone who died in 1875 should not be listed in the 1880 or 1881 census.

3 comments:

  1. I also found my Great Grandfather in the Worcester, MA city directory 5 years after he passed. The year he passed was listed in the 1925 city directory, but then why was he listed again for the next 5 years? Was someone using his name??

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  2. Yvette...my guess is the directory printer just didn't bother to update the records (or someone else was lax in reporting the necessary information).

    We are still getting mail for my husband's father, who died in 1995. We live in the same house that he did. Our phone was listed in his name, too, up until 1998 or so, because my husband didn't bother to put it in his own name :-)

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  3. I took the opposite approach...I used the Census to narrow down date of death for relatives who died before Social Security. However, I also realized that absence of evidence (on the census) is not evidence of absence (death).

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