In "Mining the Census" we covered census quirks of all kinds, including spelling problems, age discrepancies and birthplace confusion. Census takers and indexers also cause difficulties for researchers.
Our focus, however, was on the information included on many censuses that could send us to other sources. This would include number of years married, number of children and those still alive, year of immigration and/or naturalization and military service. Researchers should pay attention to all columns in every census.
Census records are available on FamilySearch and Ancestry, as well as other websites.
Common mistakes in census research include:
Looking at only one or two years
Searching only by given name
Thinking that spelling counts
Not paying attention to column headings
Not considering neighbors
Forgetting to search adjoining pages
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