Thursday, December 29, 2005

Wasting time with the census

While looking for an online transcription of an 1850 census at home (without access to Ancestry), I was lucky enough to find what I needed. The results were a little unclear, though, as the ages differed a bit from the 1860 census I had just entered into my database. Never mind that, what caught my eye was a household listed on the same page which had a man, age 90, and woman, age 112. Wow! What are the odds of that? Not very good, as it turns out. The transcription incorrectly attributed the 112 to a girl who was just 12. The mistake was clear after viewing the census image.

A few minutes later while using HeritageQuest, I noticed that the age option in their census search went all the way up to 150. I've been using HQ for a few years and never paid attention to that part of the form, at least how high it went. The funny thing is, it needs to go higher according to some census forms.

For example, the image on the right is from page 183 (1) from the 1870 census of Worcester (4th ward), Worcester County, Massachusetts.

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