Do you have a family or individual who seems to be missing in the US census? You may have thought they were traveling or somehow skipped. Although this situation did occur, it could also be that employing some specific techniques could find those ancestors. In this article, I’ll share three tips that aided me in my search for my Weatherford family.

Tip # 1 Revisit the Family

The first thing to do is to revisit the records for the individual in the context of their family. If we search based on locations in a previous census, we may assume the family stayed put. In reality, ten years is a long time, and the family could have moved multiple times. Review the locations of extended family members and consider broadening search parameters to include those counties or states.

For example, in searching the 1870 census for my ancestor Isabella Weatherford and her parents, Henderson and Clemsy Weatherford, they were nowhere to be found in Dallas County, Texas. The family was enumerated there in 1860,¹ and Isabella married John Carpenter on 3 January 1874 in Dallas County.² It made sense that the family would have also resided there in 1870 – except they didn’t.

In another attempt to locate the Weatherfords in 1870, I decided to review where Isabella’s siblings had married and were living in 1870. I found her older sister, Eliza Jane, had married in Camden County, Missouri, in 1856 and resided there in 1860 and in Benton County, Missouri, in 1870. An older brother, John Wesley Weatherford, had married in 1867 in Benton County, Missouri. Older sister, Susan Louisa Algeline Weatherford, also lived in Benton County in 1870.³

With this understanding that three of Isabella’s older siblings resided in Missouri during this time, I broadened my search to Missouri, not just Texas.

Tip # 2 Search for All Members of a Household

If your search for the surname or the head of household is negative, try searching for each household member, including all the children. Census indexing can be tricky, and many of the names can be difficult to read. It could be that a common name might have been recognized more easily by the indexer.

In the case of Isabella Weatherford, a search for her father, Henderson, and mother, Clemsy, found nothing. Nor did a search for Isabella. I had already found some of her older siblings in their own households in 1870, but what about her younger brother, Samuel Henderson Weatherford? He surely would still be in his parents’ household at age eight.

A search for Samuel Henderson Weatherford in Missouri found no likely individuals, but taking out the “Weatherford” and searching only for Samuel Henderson, age 8, born in Texas, found a “Samuel H Welaford” in the household of a “Clarrisy,” in Adair, Camden County, Missouri. Having just reviewed the Weatherford family and seen that the older daughter married in Camden County, I reviewed this record. I also suspected that “Clarrisy” could be Clemsy, a name possibly difficult to index.

Viewing the record, it certainly looked like it could be the Weatherford family. The head of the household was not Clarissy but “Clamsy,” a miswriting or mishearing of Clemsy. Isabella, age 12, was not named, but Telitha E. was instead listed. Was this another name for Isabella?⁴

1870 Census Clemsy Weatherford Household

Tip # 3 Use Wildcard Search Terms and Explore Alternate Names

Because this household had appropriate ages and birthplaces for the family and Samuel H. and Clamsy were known names, the female Talitha E. was likely Isabella. Having researched Isabella, I knew that later in life, she always went by “Isabelle D.”⁵ I hypothesized that the D might have been for Dalitha/Talitha. This may have been Clemsy’s mother’s name, as I found her niece using the same name.⁶

Searching just for Isabella did not find this census nor a search for Clemsy. Also, a search for “Weatherford” did not find it. Experimenting with the search engine on Ancestry, I found that a search for Cl* W* age 50, born in Alabama, living in Benton or surrounding counties, finally pulled up “Clarrisy” Welaford in Camden County. The wildcard asterisk enabled the search engine to look for those initials, and narrowing it to a specific place helped.

I also researched the surname “Welaford” to ensure there really wasn’t another family by this surname and found no instance of that surname in the area.

A final piece of evidence that provided additional proof for the family was the discovery of Clemsy’s sister, Mahala Shockley, just seven households away.  With Henderson Weatherford absent in the 1870 census, it seems that Clemsy was widowed and had moved back to Missouri to be near her sister’s family.

The Weatherfords did return to Texas where Isabella married in 1874 in Dallas County, and Clemsy and Samuel lived in Wise County, Texas in 1880. With their residence in 1870 in Missouri, another piece of this family’s puzzle fell into place.

I’m glad I didn’t chalk the missing 1870 census up to the family being skipped or traveling! If you have a family missing in the census, I encourage you to try these tips to locate them.

Best of luck in all your genealogy endeavors!

 

1. 1860 U.S. Census, Dallas County, Texas, population schedule, Scyene post office, page 120 (penned), dwelling 834, family 835, H. Weatherford household; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 1 Jan 2019); citing NARA microfilm publication M653 roll 1292.
2. John W. Carpenter and Bell Weatherford, license 2 Jan 1874; certified 3 Jan 1874, recorded 5 Dec 1875; Dallas County, Texas
3. FamilySearch Family Tree Profile for Clemsy Cline 1817-after 1880, K2N9-RT9, FamilySearch ( https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/K2N9-RT9 : accessed 21 December 2024), see the profiles of each child for documentation.
4. 1870 U.S. Census, Camden County, Missouri, population schedule, Adair, p. 475A (stamped), p. 7 (penned), dwelling 47, family 47, Clamsy Welaford household; imaged, “United States Census, 1870,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7163/ : accessed 24 July 2024).
5. Isabell D. Royston, widow of Robert C. Royston, application no. A6942, 1929-1942, pension no. P5893, Record Group 5, Commissioner of Confederate Pensions, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma Department of Libraries, Oklahoma City, OK.; digital images, Oklahoma, “Confederate Pension Records Database,” Oklahoma Digital Prairie (http://www.digitalprairie.ok.gov) : accessed 15 July 2016).
6. “1850 U.S. Census, Morgan County, Missouri, population schedule, Buffalo, p. 270 (stamped), dwelling 726, family 726, Henderson Weatherford household; digital image, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 Jan 2019); citing NARA microfilm publication M432, roll 408. Talitha Cline in the household of Jacob Cline on this census is almost certainly the niece of Jacob Cline and Clemsy (Cline) Weatherford.