Are there boarders, hired hands, hired girls, etc. living with your family in a 1850-1940 census? Do you know who they are? Try looking for them in earlier or later census records--you may find there is a connection to your family.
Or you may not.
But you will never know if you don't look.
Never ignore a name that could be connected to your family of interest.
Good advice! I know of several instances where unmarried school teachers ended up marrrying into the families where they were boarders.
ReplyDeleteMany of the male boarders/lodgers were married family men looking for a job....any job....so they could take care of their families. They were also some of the people most likely to be enumerated twice for the census year since their wives frequently included them (even though absent from the home)and then at their place of lodging.
ReplyDeleteWhen I found my grandfather as a child in the 1910 census, I also found his great grandother living with the family. She was his mother's grandmother, and was listed as a boarder.
ReplyDelete