1950 Census

 

I found myself on the 1950 census! Don’t know why it was so important to me, but it was.

  

 It was fun browsing my Enumeration District in Northlake, IL.  Brought back memories of people I hadn’t thought of in years. I’ll also look at Northlake’s other ED to find kids in my class at St. John Vianney school.

I looked for my cousins born in the ‘40’s but didn’t find them all because I don’t have their 1950 street addresses. At this date, the census has just been released and is not yet indexed, so you need to know the street address of the person you’re looking for. More info down below in this post.

Then I went browsing the EDs where my grandparents lived.

I know that in the 1940’s there were several Dachtera relatives living near my Grandmother’s house. A few of them were still there in 1950 – all in their 70’s by then.

Grandma Ganas was living alone in1950 in the same house where my mother grew up.  I found my mother’s sister Stella & family, who were living near my Grandma.

Neighborhoods have changed from when I knew them as a child. Homes where relatives lived in 1940 are occupied by strangers in 1950. I found that a bit jarring to my memories. It is hard to imagine other families in those homes that I once knew.

This census is very different from previous ones. The form is different, and the enumerators’ instructions are very different.  Until indexing is completed you must know the 1950 street address of the person you are looking for. With that info you can find the correct ED (Enumeration District). Once you have that you must browse page by page to find your person.  Or you can wait a few months for the indexing project to be completed.

It is well worth the time to view YouTube videos to learn more about it. Here’s one of many Lisa Louise Cooke 1950 Census Seminar

A Google search can also get you to the instructions you need.

Time marches on. I was 7 years old in April, 1950. 

 

Inaccuracy? Confusion? or Perhaps a Little White Lie?

 I suspect that Lucia Raczynska lied about the ages of her children.

It has been a struggle to find information about my paternal grandmother’s family. A scribbled name on the 1900 census had me on a wild goose chase for quite a while.

My grandmother was Tekla (Thecla) Raczynska, born September 21, 1873 in Breckerfeld, Westphalia, Prussia.  Her parents, Lucas Raczynski and Lucia Juskowiak were married on 24 Nov 1867 at Cerekwica, Wielkopolskie, Prussian Poland.  There were no civil records in Germany/Prussia until 1874, so church sacramental records are my only sources.

The 1900 US Federal census shows Tekla with her husband, Stanley Dachtera, and 3 children plus Lucia, listed as “mother” and Lucia’s sons Frank and John. But – scribbled in for Lucy’s surname is: Matykewich (sic).

So even though I know better than to make assumptions, I assumed that Lucia had been widowed and remarried to Mr. Matykiewicz.  I’m too embarrassed to tell how much time and effort I wasted on that.  Adding to my confusion was that one of Tekla’s sisters-in-law, Stella Dachtera, married Frank Raczynski.  Because he proved difficult to find in any records I had access to, I was not able to make a connection. I was never able to find Tekla on any passenger list. After beating on that brick wall for a while, I gave it a rest and moved on to something else. 

 

Fast forward to last Saturday.

Scanning photographs of my Dachtera ancestors got me back to my research.  I chased a couple of BSOs (Bright Shiny Objects), but finally found a passenger list record at FamilySearch.  Of course the surname was badly misspelled but it was worth a look at the document.  The transcriber did his/her best, but when I saw the record, I knew it was Raczynski.

It made sense.  There was my grandma with her mother, a sister, and two brothers.  YAY!!!

I did another search on Raczynski looking at city directories – and there she was in the St. Paul city directory:  Lucy Raczynski (widow of Lucas) and her son John at the appropriate address.  NO mention of Matykewich!

But then I went back to the 1900 census and it didn’t make sense.  The ages and immigration years were different from the passenger list.  How many women named Lucia Raczynska came to the US with children named Tekla, Veronica, Frank (Franz) and John (Jan)????  It is likely that the census taker spoke with Tekla who should have had accurate knowledge of birth dates – but she also may have had enough of an accent to confuse the census taker. I’ll never know for certain.

I created a small spreadsheet to try to clarify things, but that only made it clear that at least one data source had wrong information.

I have not reconciled the differences, and perhaps never will, but here’s my current thinking.

While it would be difficult to falsify the age of the infant Jan, the older children may have been presented as younger than they were in order to keep the cost of passage as low as possible.

Tekla was a very short woman.  If she was tiny as a child, it could have been possible to pass her off as a younger child to avoid paying an adult fare.  The same would hold for Veronica and Franz.

So at present, I am assuming that the Tekla Raczinska of the passenger list is my grandmother traveling with her mother and siblings.

Sure would be nice to find real proof.

If you have a different theory, please let me know. 

Family History in Perspective – Inflation

Old-timers may talk about way back when bread was 5 cents a loaf. I actually remember when

gasoline was $0.30 per gallon. Sounds pretty cheap.  BUT. I got my first part time job in 1958 making minimum wage: $1.00/hour.  My mother spoke about working in the late 1930’s for $0.39/hour.  Ahhh! The good old days!

When we look at our parents and grandparents in the 1930 US Federal census records, we see the value of their homes, or what they paid monthly in rent. The numbers look pretty small. Likewise, when we find information on wages and salaries, those numbers look pretty small. So, I’ve spent a little time comparing then and now.

Using the CPI (Consumer Price Index) Inflation Calculator from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, I see that things may not have changed that much. It is also important to realize that the world of finance was much different in the past.  It was more difficult to get a mortgage or other kind of credit.  Savings were often kept at home rather than in banks. Only the well-to-do had checking accounts.  By contrast, creditors, today are often more than willing to extend credit to almost anyone who is breathing.

A home valued at $10,000.00 in 1930 is valued in 1916 dollars at just over $144.500.00. 

In 1938 in St. Paul, Minnesota, the average annual income was $600.00 for an individual and $1700.00 per household (multiple wage earners)[i]

1938                           2016

$600                           $10,200

$1708                         $29,200

That still doesn’t look like much in today’s dollars, but this was the Great Depression when very many were unemployed.

My 1958 $1.00 minimum wage would equal $8.35 today. 

Certainly there are many more factors to consider when trying to compare yesterday’s economics to today’s; but even this simplistic comparison is interesting.

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[i] Hathi Trust https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89097041537;view=1up;seq=9

Family History From Census Records

 

Last evening, I started reading COMMON PEOPLE subtitled: In Pursuit of My Ancestors by Alison Light.  So far I’ve read the preface and prologue and gotten only to page 59 of the content, but these few pages have inspired me to review my family's census records for the wealth of historical information they may hold.

Ms. Light began with little knowledge of her ancestry. She studied census records and from there was able to identify and then visit ancestral towns. She’s done an amazing amount of research beyond census records, but I was struck by how much information can be gleaned from the census.  I’ve always looked for obvious family living nearby but I rarely dive into understanding the character of a neighborhood.

What was the neighborhood like?

• Single Family Homes?
• Apartment buildings?
• Boarding Houses?
• Multiple generations living together?
• Did surnames and/or birthplaces indicate a predominant nationality?
• Many children or few per family?
• What kinds of jobs did people have?

Did they move often? Or Never?

Did occupations change over time?

The “FAN club” (Friends, Associates, Neighbors)  is an important part of understanding our ancestors and our heritage.

I can’t wait to read the rest of Alison Light’s genealogy journey.

Birthplace on Census Records

This week’s homework for Dear Myrt’s Tracing Immigrant Origins Study Group is to review census records to find country of origin for our immigrant ancestors.

Census records show the birthplace of my great grandfather Joseph Dachtera as

Prussia – 1900

Prussian Poland – 1910

Poland – 1920

They’re all correct

Poland did not exist as a sovereign nation when he was born – her lands had been divided up among her more powerful neighbors, Prussia, Austria, and Russia.  But at the end of World War I, Poland’s sovereignty was restored. In 1920 his birthplace was once again within the borders of Poland.

I’m tempted to write more here about the wealth of immigration information to be found in census records, but I suspect that may be part of our next assignment so I’ll hold off for now.

Making Sense of the Census – sifting through misunderstanding, misinterpretation and errors

Census data is probably the single richest source of family information in the U.S.. Beginning in 1790, the United States began compiling a census every ten years.  This information is held confidential for 72 years following each census; and then it is made public.  The LDS (Latter Day Saints) library has microfilms of every page of every census except for 1890.  A fire destroyed most of the original 1890 census documents.  These records have been indexed; and digital images made available online at Ancestry.com. Also, the complete information can be found at the LDS Family Search website.

Additionally, a number of states conducted their own census every ten years in the years ending with the number 5 until the 20^th century.  Many of these are also available online.

Finding accurate information seems like a simple task (it mostly is) until you take into account the human factor. 

• Some people avoided the census takers.
• Names may have been misspelled when the person answering the questions had a thick foreign accent or the census taker didn’t take the time to verify spelling.
• Nicknames were sometimes used instead of proper names.
• Immigrants may have changed the spelling of their last name, or even have changed it entirely.
• Sloppy or hurried handwriting produced interpretation errors by those who compiled the index.

It is important to keep and open mind when searching records that were originally hand written.

Ignatz Ganas, Ignatius Gawnos, Nicholas Ganas, and Nick Ganas are all the same person.  According to different census years, he was born in Poland, Prussia, Germany or German Poland.

Patrick C Perry, PC Perry and Clube Perry are also the same person. It took me a long time to find Clube.  His full name was Patrick Clabron Perry and he was sometimes called “Clabe”.  My guess is that the census taker wrote Clabe but didn’t close the lower case a, so the indexer thought it was Clube.

Go to the LDS website at www.familysearch.org and enter the name of a member of your family who was living in 1930.  When you get the results page, that person’s name will be a link to the information contained in the record that was found.  All for FREE.  In fact, even though I was not alive in 1930, I’m in their datablase because the state of Minnesota has made many of its birth records index available covering the years 1935 – 2002. 

Ancestry.com has all of the information plus the diitized images of the census record microfilms, but you need to purchase a subscription in order to be able to see them. 

There’s often value in having the census page images available.  You’ll see the immediate neighbors.  Looking at the pages before and after the one with your relative may help find other members of the family if they lived in the same neighborhood.

As I write this, the most current census available is 1930.

But on April 12, 2012, the 1940 census becomes public.  Hooray!

If you’re lucky enough to live near a branch of the National Archives, you have free access to all this census data plus a lot more. And you can make copies of the images.  Every branch has volunteers who can help you find what you’re looking for. 

If there’s a Mormon church near you, there’s probably also a Family Search Center.  They’ll have some microfilms on site but for a fee you can order a copy of virtually any film in their library for viewing at their facility.

If you’ve ever thought about starting a family tree project, go ahead and give it a try.