Another decade has gone by, and that means another census. Filling the forms was a simple thing, but for some reason I didn’t do it right away, finally getting ourselves counted after the first reminder. I don’t understand those who don’t do it and wait until people have to come to the door to complete it.
One thing good about the internet is the ease of looking up ancestors and digging into genealogy. Privacy laws keep census records held for 72 years before being released, so right now the 1940 census is available, and in two years the 1950 records will be released.
Working backward to earlier counts — 1930, 1920 etc. — one can find out where their relatives lived at a given point in time. Differences in the questions asked each decade sometimes makes it difficult to find out certain things you’d like to know, so the more information given is appreciated by future generations.
We did some research a few years ago and got stymied on my side of the family, while my wife’s went back to a European country. At the time, the 1920 census was where we got a lot of our information. I found my great-grandfather, Pleasant, from Tennessee, living with another family in Missouri.
So far, we don’t know what happened to his parents. One theory is that his mother died on the trip and his father met someone on the Trail of Tears and went back to Tennessee.
Genealogy is fun as you learn about your family, but discouraging when you run into road blocks. There’s good fortune, however, if you decide to jump into the fray.
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