Quick Workaround: When You Can't See Ancestry.com Records from the Profile View

My 3rd cousin 3x removed Bixler cousin, Lewis Edward Bixler, who was a glass blower in Muncie, Indiana.  I want to add hashtags to his profile in my Legacy 9.0 database. Most of the hashtags I create come from information in the records I've attached to each profile at Ancestry.com.

But when I clicked on his 1900 Census to View the image I got this error message.

For whatever reason, Ancestry.com sometimes gets in its own way.  As an example, it has been impossible today to look at attached records by simply clicking the View button.

Fortunately there is a quick workaround.

Click on the Search link and...[edited to add: you can also click directly on the small image of the census and that will take you to directly to the image and not the indexed data]

The links to the census records are available to click, and this time they actually work.

And now I can see the indexed data Ancestry.com provided, and then View the image (unless there is a snag in the imaging function).

© 2020 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Happy Wedding Anniversary (15 November 1798) to My 5th Great Grandparents, Elizabeth Ward and John H. Hardy

I got a little carried away tonight and goofed around with Social Explorer (which is free if you just use the Federal Census Data, 1790-abt 1940).  The map shows the move that my 5th great grandparents made after their marriage in Bertie County, North Carolina to (then) frontier Lincoln County, Georgia (this map was used with 1800 Census state and county information)

I finally buckled down and used the Social Explorer site to make custom historical maps for my ancestors - 5th Great Grandparents Elizabeth Ward and John H. Hardy.  There is a learning curve but it is pretty intuitive overall, and they give you a lot of control on making custom maps.

The following is the pricing for this service.  I think if you belong to an institution of higher learning, government, or business you may already have the ability to access this.  In San Diego, for instance, it looks like UCSD has it available at any time by a limited number of students.

I use the free service.  If you pay more of course you get more functionality but even the limited functions are powerful.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: William R. Phillips (1818-1890), Merchant - After the Pardon 1865 - 1890

Although the Civil War ruined many Southern fortunes (especially those based on land, slaves and cotton), because his business interests were commercial William R. Phillips proved more resilient than most former Confederates. In fact, according to his entry in the 1870 U.S. Census, five years after his pardon application he was back in Atlanta and richer than before the war.*

[Year: 1870; Census Place: Atlanta Ward 1, Fulton, Georgia. Ancestry.com. 1870 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: 1870 U.S. census, population schedules. NARA microfilm publication M593, 1,761 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.Minnesota census schedules for 1870. NARA microfilm publication T132, 13 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.]

Ten years later the only Phillips child still living at home in Atlanta is their 16-year-old daughter N.B. William R. is still calling himself a Merchant and there's are three "Roomers" in the household: Mr W. Baker, a 35-year-old merchant*** and two clerks who work in the store. There are still three servants living in the household.

[Year: 1880; Census Place: Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia; Roll: 148; Family History Film: 1254148; Page: 477B; Enumeration District: 103; Image: 0596. Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1880 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. 1880 U.S. Census Index provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints © Copyright 1999 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. Original data: Tenth Census of the United States, 1880. (NARA microfilm publication T9, 1,454 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

The above information doesn't tell us much about William R.'s financial status in 1880 but we can learn more about him from the local newspapers. For instance in 1883 he was a candidate for Bibb County Commissioner.

[Date: Wednesday, May 23, 1883   Paper: Macon Telegraph (Macon, Georgia)   Issue: 10375  Page: 4  

This entire product and/or portions thereof are copyrighted by NewsBank and/or the American Antiquarian Society. 2004.

ource: GenealogyBank.com]

And he was duly elected as a Democrat and continued to be returned to the office of County Commissioner throughout the 1880s.

[Date: Friday, June 15, 1883   Paper: Macon Telegraph (Macon, Georgia)   Issue: 10395   Page: 4  

This entire product and/or portions thereof are copyrighted by NewsBank and/or the American Antiquarian Society. 2004.

Source: GenealogyBank.com]

His name appears several time in connection with business affairs but there's this 1890 court calendar listing William R. as the plaintiff in a lawsuit, although I don't know what the issue was nor have I been able to  discover what the result was.

[Date: Thursday, February 27, 1890   Paper: Macon Telegraph (Macon, Georgia)   Page: 5  

This entire product and/or portions thereof are copyrighted by NewsBank and/or the American Antiquarian Society. 2004.

Source: GenealogyBank.com]

William R. Phillips died on December 22, 1890. His will was filed in Fulton County on February 2, 1891 and recorded on March 5th. I'm going to include only the first two paragraphs here, but in the first item I think we can get a sense of what he was like.

[Wills, Book B, 1882-1894. Ancestry.com. Georgia, Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Georgia County, District and Probate Courts.]

Will of William R. Phillips

Georgia - Fulton County
          In the name of God, Amen.
I, Wm. R. Phillips of the County and State
aforesaid do make and declare the follow-
ing as my last will and testament,
hereby revoking all others.

Item 1st. My wife know what debts I consider Just.
There I wish her to pay out of my estate
not paying any other claims against me
if she can help it.



*The worth of his "personal property" was unchanged, but his real estate had more than doubled in value. 1870 was the last census to ask about property.
**In the previous census her name was written as Ninnie B. (not to be confused with older sister Nanny T. (Nancy Timney).
***Perhaps a business partners? This is the first census that asked the relationship of all household members to the head.






© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Hat Tip: The Legal Genealogist Says "Read the Directions"

The Legal Genealogist's Judy G. Russell recently encouraged her readers to read the directions (.PDF) that the Federal census enumerators had to read, so I did.  Actually, I've looked at them before, but I always see something new that I hadn't noticed before whenever I review them.

This time I realized the 1850 and 1860 slave schedules included a column to indicate slaves who had escaped within the year!  How could I have missed that? It's not like these are complicated forms.

But it is very satisfying to see the evidence that some were escaping.  I'm over here cheering them on.

And this lead me to discover that this affected some of my own ancestors. A close look at this 1860 US slave schedule in Georgia shows that my ancestress Mary (Henderson) Turner had lost her one slave (a 48 year old mulatto woman) and son Shadrack Turner had lost a total of 18.  Other neighbors were having the same problem.  That is something I didn't realize I was seeing before.

This is exciting, because I do know that Mary got 3 slaves from her husband in his will in 1851 in Newton County, Georgia:

""I give unto my beloved wife Mary Turner, during her natural life or widowhood Charles a negro man, Viney a negro woman and Mourning a negro woman."**"

So I'm not certain, but the runaway woman may have possibly been named Viney or Mourning.  I tried looking through the Georgia Historic Newspapers: Milledgeville database to see if the Turners advertised for these lost slaves, but that site is running really slowly and I will have to follow up on this lead later.


So it really does pay to read the instructions.  Even, maybe especially, if you have been working with these records for a while.  It is easy to get lazy and complacent.




**"Georgia, Probate Records, 1742-1990," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-30463-13550-21?cc=1999178&wc=9SBS-YW5:267728901,267884801 : accessed 30 March 2015), Newton - Wills 1823-1871 vol 1-2 - image 167 of 350; county probate courthouses, Georgia.


© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Research: Were My Kin’s White Neighbors Descendants of My Ancestor’s Owners?

This useful guide to researching relationships between freed people, their descendants, and their white neighbors came to my attention through a post on New England Historic Genealogical Society's (NEHGS) Facebook page.

Originally posted on The Root, Henry Louis Gates Jr. consulting with Christopher Lee, a researcher from NEHGS, responds to the query Were My Kin’s White Neighbors Descendants of My Ancestor’s Owners? with a variety of avenues to explore.

What we found illustrates the close relationship that the emancipated people and their former owners frequently had in the years following the end of the U.S. Civil War, and the ways old patterns of power and economic interdependency endured.

NEHGS also has a free webinar about the topic posted earlier this year on YouTube.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Census Instructions

[Taking census; National Photo Company Collection, from glass negative taken between 1918 and 1920.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA]

The United States Census Bureau website has lots of great information but today I want to draw attention to their Census Instructions. Here's the Bureau's introduction:

"The decennial census has always required a large workforce to visit and collect data from households. Between 1790 to 1870, the duty of collecting census data fell upon the U.S. Marshals. A March 3, 1879 act replaced the U.S. Marshals with specially hired and trained census-takers to conduct the 1880 and subsequent censuses.

During the early censuses, U.S. Marshalls received little training or instruction on how to collect census data. In fact, it was not until 1830 that marshals even received printed schedules on which to record households' responses. The marshals often received limited instruction from the census acts passed prior to each census. 

Beginning with the 1880 census, specially hired and trained census-takers replaced the U.S. marshals. Door-to-door census by temporary census-takers was the primary method of conducting the census until the U.S. Census Bureau began mailing questionnaires to households in 1960. 

As more and more households received and returned their questionnaires by mail, the role of census-taker changed. Today, the majority of households are counted by mailed questionnaires. Census-takers visit places frequented by transient households (shelters and soup kitchens, campsites, etc.) and households that do not return their mailed questionnaires (during the "Nonresponse Follow-Up" phase of the census). As a result, the "Instructions to Enumerators" provided here include the congressional acts U.S. marshalls reviewed during the early census, specially-published instructions for door-to-door census, and lastly, guides used for the limited number of personal interviews conducted during nonresponse follow-up operations."

While researching Leah Bixler Groves*, I was puzzled by the entry of "N.G." in Column 19 which lists her occupation in the 1900 Census because she was 87 at the time. 

[Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, 1854 rolls.]

And that's what took me to the Census Instructions for that census, where I found this on page 38:

"Nongainful Pursuits.

218. If a person is attending school write 'at school.' No entry in column 19 should be made, however, for a lawyer, merchant, manufacturer, etc., who has retired from practice or business; nor for a wife or daughter living at home and assisting only in the household duties without pay (see paragraph 185); nor for a person too old to work, or a child under 10 years of age not at school." 

So it seems that the census taker, Arthur L. Remley**, wrote "N.G." meaning nongainful even though that column should have been left blank. And by listing her as Mrs. F.G. Groves, Mr Remley wasn't following instructions there either because he should have used her given name instead.

Perhaps you'll find that the Census Instructions can help you answer some questions that may have arisen when you're looking at an ancestor's records.

*Of whom you will learn more tomorrow.
**We know his name because he signed at the top of every page, as per instructions.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

A Census Was Taken Today: "We All Count": San Diego Task Force On the Homeless

Click here to see video on CBS News 8 - San Diego, CA

In order to qualify for funds to help the homeless, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires regional organizations, like the San Diego Regional Task Force on the Homeless, to conduct a survey in one day during the last 10 days of January of each year.  More details and requirement from HUD here and here.  In the future the results will be displayed as just numbers and statistics, not personal information on each homeless person, but still helpful to future historians and genealogists.  Everything is grist for the mill.

More in depth here from the San Diego Union-Tribune today.



© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

The Census Takers: A Little Thursday Humor

Hannibal Lecter: 

"A census taker once tried to test me. 

I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti."

As someone who uses the American censuses regularly, I often think of census takers.  What was it like to do that job?  The job has always entailed weird and sometimes dangerous situations, but it must have also had it's share of humorous encounters.

The situation of asking perfect strangers questions about their household has always provided comedic fodder for fiction (much of it not politically correct BTW):

• this 2000 SNL "Census Taker" skit, 
• the 1940 Three Stooges "No Census, No Feeling,"  
• the short play "Taking the Census in Bingville" (published 1911),
• the poem "The Puzzled Census Taker" (published in 1883), 

The blog YesterYear Once More found this gem (1830).

The Census Bureau itself posted some humorous examples in the Census in Pop Culture Through the Decades.



© 2014 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.