Sunday, June 6, 2010

Looking through the WHOLE census!



I had some fun yesterday!
I printed out all of the pages of the Swinney, Washington County, TN 1960 census [there was only 22].
Why? Because I was looking for my many times great-grandfather James Hicks again.
See, there's a conflict here. There's two James Hicks who are one year apart that are living in Swinney. James Hicks, 19 years, son of Eli and Susannah Walker Hicks is living with his parents and siblings in dwelling number 798 on page 122. Simple right?
Nope, my cousin Janelle [who is a Walker], thinks the correct James Hicks for our family is the one that is 18 years old and living as a laborer with William and Matilda Walker.
Now I'm pretty sure the James Hicks living at home with his brothers and sisters is the right one, but the interesting thing I found while looking at the individual census pages online was that there are Walker children living with Eli and Susannah Hicks!
Then I started looking through other pages and found the Keys [James Hicks would marry Mary E. Keys when Mary Matilda died somewhere around 1874]. Then I found the Whetsels and Whites! [William Hicks, future son of James and Matilda Cox Hicks would marry Indelee Whetsel, daughter of Samuel and Hannah Eliza Woods Whetsel. Hannah is the White and Gibson family relation.]
See, all these people lived near each other and didn't move around like we do today. So if you find a family member on a long ago census, look at the other pages for that area. You might find a treasure trove!

No comments:

Post a Comment