Elizabeth’s Journal

How Do I Know They are My Karls?

Jennifer asked two good questions in her comment to the previous entry: how do I know the Karls (with a different spelling of the last name) in the 1860 and 1870 censuses are my Karls? And why are the names different?

Here’s how I feel 100% certain that these households are ours. I’m going to work backwards and start with the 1870 census, where I found two households—Peter Carl and John J. Karrer. First of all, I already had found both Peter Karl and John J. Karl (brothers, and sons of Johann and Elisabeth Karl) in the 1880 census, so I knew where they lived—what county (Tuscarawas County) and even what township within the county (John J. in Sugar Creek Township, Peter in Dover Township). I also knew that Johann had died in 1865, and in the 1880 census his widow, Elisabeth, was living in her son Peter’s house.

So when I went to the 1870 census, which did NOT have an index, I simply located Dover Township and went through the census schedules page by page, looking at all the names. Finally I came across a “Peter Carl”, aged 26, whose household included Sarah, Rose May, Clara, Elisabeth, and Catherine. The age of Sarah was correct for his known wife, Sarah Auman, and the names of his first two children as I knew them were correct, along with the ages listed. Elisabeth was the right age for his mother, and Catherine was the right age for his sister. There were no children missing. That’s how I “know” this is the right household. Similar reasoning applies to the John J. Karrer household—all names and ages are right, and no one is missing that I would have expected to find, as well as no one being there that I didn’t expect to see.

In the 1860 census, Johann was still alive. So I just tried different townships within Tuscarawas County (again having to go through them page by page), and on about the third township I found them. The household has John as the head, with the age ours would have been, and it also includes Elisabeth, Peter (the oldest son John was already married by then, so I did not expect to see him there), Jacob, etc.—all family members I expected to see. The only one missing is a sister named Maria; I suspect she died between arriving in America in 1850 and the 1860 census being taken. The last name spelling of “Caroll” is fairly phonetic for “Karl”.

Re why the names are different—although our family was literate, many were not, so names would often be spelled phonetically. Also, there was less emphasis on consistent spelling. Furthermore, if a family (or the adults) wasn’t at home on the day the census taker came by, he may have just gotten their information from the neigbor next door, or from the oldest child in the house, who might not have spelled too well. Also, foreign names got (and still get) Americanized, and that happens over years. “Johann” gets changed to “John”, etc.

Grama Karl’s household in the 1930 census shows up as “Sadie McCologh”, for instance. In at least one of the censuses, John Kenefick (Sadie’s father) shows up as “Kennefick”, and I think there were other variations as well. The census sheets, while extraordinarily valuable research tools, are not considered by genealogists to be proof of anything other than where a family lived—they should just be tools that point you in a direction for verification of what’s recorded in the census.

Congratulations to anyone who read this far!

Posted by elizabeth at May 14, 2003 10:49 AM