Showing posts with label Enumeration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Enumeration. Show all posts

Friday, February 23, 2018

Finding Cousin Ruth in the 1940 Federal Census


This post is a continuation of my previous post about my Dad's paternal 1st Cousin, Margaret Ruth Thompson Cooper.  If you haven't read that earlier post and click on her name in the previous sentence.  I'm going to refer to her as Ruth because that is what my family always called her.  On Ruth's death certificate it lists her legal residence as 129 6th Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee.  I'd never been able to find Ruth thru a search of the census so now that I had the address where she was residing in 1941(and also listed there in 1940 directory as mentioned in the earlier post), I took that information and went looking for the Enumeration District for that address using the Steve Morse Census Tool.
From locating the address on a Google Map earlier I could see that the intersecting street was McGavock which narrowed it down to 2 Enumeration Districts.  I then browsed to the first of the two districts mentioned which had 12 pages and read those looking at the Street names.  Nothing...on to the next Enumeration District.  About halfway thru the 20 something pages, I find the address.  Margaret Ruth Thompson Cooper is listed as Margaret Moore.  No wonder I couldn't find her.  This is really odd to me because earlier in the directory for 1940 she is listed under last name Coopermore and the only one listed at the address in the directory. In the Census there are 4 other women who are in their 20s living at the same residence. Three of those women are divorced and one is widowed.   Some answers but more questions.  Are all these Margaret Cooper's the same person?

Newspapers.com - The Tennessean - 30 Mar 1941 - Page 31


A few thoughts 

1. I know from the information on the Death Certificate that the person listed is Cousin Ruth.  Her parents' names, place, and date of birth are exactly as they should be.  Too, we have her maternal 1st Cousin as the informant.  The residence on the Death Certificate and the census are the same so it seems likely that it was her.




Snippets from Tennessee, Death Records, 1908-1958 Ancestry.com 2011 Provo UT
From TN Death Certificate of Margaret Ruth Cooper who died March 22 , 1941

2.  She's listed as divorced in the census AND on the death certificate.  Her former husband B. V. Cooper remarried in 1939.

Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee; Roll: m-t0627-03972; Page: 6A; ED: 99-42


3.  Why is the name/word "more" or  Moore listed in both the directory AND the census?
Very odd unless she was married to a Moore and divorced sometime in between her 1st marriage and 1940.  Also to have the word more added on the end of her surname Cooper in the directory is odd.  She is noted as the person who gave the info for herself in the 1940 Census.  


4.  I think my next plan of action should be to look at the other four persons enumerated with her and see if I can determine any connections.  

5.  Additionally, I need to find her divorce records from B. V. Cooper.  

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Perfect Example of why you should always check the image

Never in my research has there been a better example which illustrates the importance of always clicking thru to view the linked images.  If you check the image you will see this is the page on which the census taker, Lula S. Berry is adding all the people that were left out of earlier households. She has the words "Out Of Order" written at the top of the page.  It looks like the information to find the households which they were a part of is included in the Location & Household Column along with a note on one of the earlier entries before this grouping that says Information furnished by Ms? Irvine.   It is difficult to tell what her system may have been for referencing those households.  The snippet I included is of the Record which is linked to Stamped page 261 Sheet 61A.  The people ABOVE the blue line are included on the page which is linked to the record.   It looks like it was in question whether some infants should have been included or not and the census taker waited til the last to add them.  Also the persons who are shown on the record snippet BELOW the blue line and  located Two images ahead are guests at the Imperial Hotel in Monterey TN.  Always check the image and never blindly add from the record.  Additionally, It's a good idea to check at the end of a district to see if there are any persons of interest which were left out of the initial entry and are included at the end of that district.  Browsing thru this district which is in order by the stamped page number, you will see that sometimes the sheet number doesn't follow the pattern you would expect it to follow.  Always check the image and browse a few pages before and after the entry of interest especially if it doesn't appear to be a standard enumeration.  We could blame this on the census taker or the indexer.  In my opinion the blame is on us as researchers for not checking more closely.



1940 U.S. census, Putnam County, Tennessee, population schedule, Monterey Town, Enum. Dist: 71-18, p. 261 (stamped), digital image(45 of 48), Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com/ : accessed 20 April 2017); citing NARA microfilm publication T627, roll 3928.

Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627, 4,643 rolls.


Enumeration District : 71-18; Description: CIVIL DISTRICT 14, MONTEREY TOWN, DR. W. C. OFFICER´S SANITARIUM