Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > soc.genealogy.computing > #6505

Re: What if...

Show all headers | View raw

On 05/05/2020 20:22, J. Hugh Sullivan wrote:
> ...a man appears on consecutive censuses in the same county, but not
> on a third, do you normally record that he died during the period or
> not if you can't locate him? By 1850 you might find his wife without
> him.
> 
> If you record that he died is your source logic, guess, none or
> something else?

The only thing you can reliably record is that you didn't find him.
One instance: ggfather's youngest brother present on 1851 but not 
thereafter.  Two of their older brothers had emigrated to Australia in 
1848.  The oldest half-brother emigrated to the US in 1852 or 3.  All 
that can be said of the youngest is that he couldn't be found in 1861. 
He may well have emigrated but the US branch appear not to have known of 
him in Chicago and I never found any other evidence of him elsewhere.

Another instance: trying to trace an ancestor of one of the visitors at 
the drop-in family history sessions I used to run.  He was a stone mason 
which tends to be a peripatetic profession.  His wife was on the census 
but down as wife in relation to head of family, not as head herself and 
not as widow which were a couple of clues to the fact he was still 
alive.  After a bit of searching we found him as a lodger, presumably 
working on some construction project.

"I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable statement and, if you don't, 
the only truthful one.  You might qualify it with some possible 
explanation and your reasoning but those are secondary.

Ian

Back to soc.genealogy.computing | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

What if... Eagle@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan) - 2020-05-05 19:22 +0000
  Re: What if... Dennis <nobody@nowhere.invalid> - 2020-05-05 15:57 -0400
  Re: What if... Denis Beauregard <denis.b-at-francogene.com@fr.invalid> - 2020-05-05 18:55 -0400
  Re: What if... Ian Goddard <ianng@austonley.org.uk> - 2020-05-06 12:41 +0100
  Re: What if... Richard Smith <richard@ex-parrot.com> - 2020-05-06 13:21 +0100
  Re: What if... dangnearhere@juno.com - 2020-07-12 19:55 -0700

csiph-web