Digging Through the Ashes
As researchers, we have our favorite go-to’s. We tend to get set in our ways and continue down the same paths. But sometimes, consulting the same records and making the same assumptions means we end up with the same result: a brick wall.
Notably, as soon as we have a new lead or a new ancestor’s line to research, we jump right to the federal population census. The federal census, as we know, is taken every 10 years, but it also contains numerous inaccuracies and isn’t a foolproof source.
For one thing, there’s the issue of the 1890 census. We often hear the returns are missing and make assumptions. We run! We expect a huge loss of information and records, and jump right to the 1900 census.
Why do we do that? There are 20 years between the 1880 and 1900 censuses. Do we really think was going on in our ancestors’ counties and communities during that time? No one is beyond having brick walls or research challenges, but let’s not create our own by simply giving up.
