You should have included most of these answers:

1.  To discover a county of residence.

2.  To limit the scope of research to specific areas of surname location.

3.  To help locate individuals in unindexed county histories.

4.  To determine who the neighbors were in case a neighborhood search is necessary

5.  To establish movement patterns during a 50-year period.

6.  To determine family wealth, and property ownership including slaves.

7.  To determine an approximate time period of death.

8.  To establish longevity of family members and family sizes.

9.  To determine when male members come of age and begin to appear as family heads.

10.  To determine ages of family members.

11.  To determine when individuals of African American descent became "free slaves."

AIDS FOR FINDING THESE CLUES
Forms have been developed to help the researcher analyze the information contained on these census records more easily. These can be purchased in genealogy bookstores or on the Internet at www.GRAonline.com.

PRACTICING WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Scanned images of census records can be found on the Internet. Most charge a subscription fee to access, but many public and university libraries subscribe to ProQuest-Heritage Quest, or to Ancestry Library edition and they are, therefore, accessible online. Three companies which offer census images on-line are ancestry.com, genealogy.com, and proquest.com (heritagequest). Take time during this coming week to locate a place where you can access these images. Check out the quality of their on-line images and their ability to print on your home printer. While this image below might look blurry, if you were viewing it on one of their viewers you could blow it up considerably larger and see the information better.

Above is a scanned image of an 1840 census record. As you go back in time to 1790, less and less information is provided and the handwriting and forms may seem less and less readable. But with practice you will be able to break down each of the barriers to using these records.

Two sample transcribed entries which were taken off of these original handwritten census records are found below. Using the information found in the following 1830 and 1840 census records, please reconstruct the family by answering the questions given below.

1830 CENSUS: VA, Patrick Co., pg. 176, FHL film # 29670:

Joseph Vaughn, free white males: 1 under 5, 2 5-10, 1 15-20, 1 40-50; free white females: 1 under 5, 1 15-20, 1 40-50.

1840 CENSUS: VA, Patrick County (not in index, found through a page by page, line by line search). Joseph was on the same page with German Hollandworth. His son Joshua A. Vaughan married German's daughter.

Joseph Vaughan, 1 male 10-15 [this would be Joshua], 1 50-60; 1 female 10-15 , 1 female 50-60.

 Answer such questions as:

1.  Who is the head of the household? 

2.  When was the head of household born? 

3.  How old is his wife? 

4.  How many males were in Joseph�s family as provided on these census records? 

5.  How many females in his family? 

6.  What other clues are presented in the information? 

7.  If all the males and females were direct family members, how many children did Joseph and his wife have? 

Did you notice that his family�s surname was spelled differently in these two years? Did you notice that some of the males were gone. Do you think they may have married and moved out of the household? Perhaps they were working somewhere nearby but not living at home. All Vaughan families in the county should be collected in 1840 in order to locate the children of Joseph.

(Were you able to correctly answer the 7 questions above? Here are the answers: 1. 1830 Joseph Vaughn, 1840 Joseph Vaughan; 2. On both 1830 & 1840 between 1780 and 1790.; 3. On both 1830 & 1840 she is born between 1780 and 1790; 4. 1830 - 5 males; 1840 - 2 males; 5. 1830 - 3 females; 1840 - 2 females; 6. These family members are free, white. One little boy is under 5, 1 between 15-20, 1 girl under 5, and 1 girl between 15-20. They lived in Patrick County, Virginia, and have been there for at least 10 years; 7. At least 6 children.)



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