Want to learn how to use Evidentia 1790 census workflows to catalog your ancestor’s records? This step-by-step example walks through exactly how to extract and tag every claim from a 1790 US Census record using Evidentia’s source-first approach.
Learn by example? Over the next few months I want to offer use cases for entering and analyzing the US Census records. My hope is that this will help you get a better idea of how Evidentia fits into your workflow.
In these exercises we will not focus on citations. We assume you have already cited your source record and are ready to catalog, and eventually, analyze.
The 1790 US Census
It’s a mess, right? This is a sample of the 1790 Census for Gilmanton, NH. Handwritten, with those little hash marks — what kind of “claims” can we possibly extract, other than the fact that the head of household lived in Gilmanton? Let’s take a look.
The enumeration date for the 1790 census was 2 August 1790. Six questions were asked, giving us at least 6 possible claims.
- Name of Head of Household
- Count of Free White males of 16 years and upward (to assess the country’s industrial and military potential)
- Count of Free White males under 16 years
- Count of Free White females
- Count of All other free persons
- Count of Slaves
For this exercise, I will be cataloging claims regarding my ancestor, David Thompson.
Cataloging the Claims
Using the Evidentia “complete this sentence” approach, we can record the following:
| This source claims that… |
| on August 2, 1790 David Thompson lived in Gilmanton, NH |
| on August 2, 1790 the household of David Thompson included 1 male 16 years of age or older |
| on August 2, 1790 the household of David Thompson included 1 male under 16 years of age |
| on August 2, 1790 the household of David Thompson included 3 females |
| on August 2, 1790 the household of David Thompson included no other free persons |
| on August 2, 1790 the household of David Thompson included no slaves |
You may decide it is not worth cataloging the last two items, since they admittedly provide little value. This is a personal choice, and I include them only for completeness.
It is important to note that referencing the August 2 date assumes
- that the enumerator followed the instructions to only record counts as of the August 2nd date, even though in this example the enumerator may have taken the count anywhere within a 9 month period
- that the person answering the enumerators questions understood the questions were to be answered “as of August 2nd 1790”
However, at this point in the Evidentia workflow we are not making any judgments about the quality or accuracy of the record, so recording the claims this way makes sense and may prove helpful later.
We Might be Missing Something
It would be easy to assume we have gleaned all we can from this census record, but in my case we would be missing something. Note the entry above David’s. Jon Thompson. Relative? Possibly.
This jumped out at me because the revolutionary war enlistment record for David also showed a John Thompson joining at the same time. This kind of indirect clue might help me pin down other facts about David’s life. I don’t want to lose this information.
| This source claims that… |
| on August 2, 1790 Jon Thompson lived in Gilmanton, NH, the same town as David Thompson |
OK, we have 5 (possibly 7) pieces of potentially valuable information. Let’s turn it into evidence!
Tagging Our Claims
Evidence is information applied to a research question. Right now we have information. To make it evidence, we need to tag the information to the subject(s) and claim types we think they may be relevant to. We do not have to be 100% sure at this time. We can reevaluate our assignments during our analysis.
| This source claims that… | Subject/Claim Type |
| on August 2, 1790 David Thompson lived in Gilmanton, NH | Thompson, David (ca 1790)/Residence |
This first claim is pretty straightforward. It provides evidence for the residence of David Thompson on August 2, 1790.
But what about all these anonymous head counts? This is where we tag the claim with what we THINK it applies to. It’s OK that there is some guessing going on – analysis is later.
| on August 2, 1790 the household of David Thompson included 1 male 16 years of age or older | Thompson, David (ca 1790)/Birth |
It is reasonable to assume that since there is only one male over 16, and David is HH, that the 1 person is David himself. If David was 16 or older on August 2, 1790, then we will be able to calculate a “born before” date. This is a clue – evidence. But we will leave the calculations to the analysis phase.
| on August 2, 1790 the household of David Thompson included 1 male under 16 years of age | Thompson, Jacob/Residence Thompson, Jacob/Birth |
Where did this Jacob fellow come from? Well based on other evidence I have collected, I believe David had a son, Jacob, who was born before 1790. It is reasonable that this counter refers to him. We know this boy was younger than 16 on August 2, 1790, so again, we will be able to do some calculations.
| on August 2, 1790 the household of David Thompson included 3 females | Brown, Rachel/Residence Thompson, Anna/Residence Unknown |
I have evidence that David’s wife was Rachel Brown, and since other census records show her living with David throughout his life, it is reasonable to assume one of the 3 females was Rachel.
Time for a custom claim type. Elizabeth Shown Mills has coined the phrase FAN club, referring to Friends, Associates, and Neighbors we run across in our research. Evidentia doesn’t have a FAN reference, but it’s easy enough to add one from the List manager screen using the Claims Type List tab.
Now I can tag the claim.
| on August 2, 1790 Jon Thompson lived in Gilmanton, NH, the same town as David Thompson | Thompson, David (ca 1798)/FAN |
Summary
In this post I identified 5 pieces of information in the Evidentia 1790 census workflow that I believe are relevant to my research. I have tried to explain my justification for including each piece of information, as well as which research questions (tags) I think they provide evidence for.
I have NOT tried to evaluate the information for quality or accuracy. I have also not drawn any implications from the information. I have restricted myself to recording what the source has to say, and tagging each piece of information to one or more research questions.
In my next post, I will walk through my analysis process, and hopefully show why even the vague clues provided by the hash marks in the 1790 census can provide evidence as we research our ancestors. Ready to go deeper? Learn how to analyze genealogy evidence step by step.