An All-Names Index
to the
1870 Census, Martin County, INDIANA
from microfilms and from scanned images of these microfilms
obtained from the National Archives
John L. Ragle
All Rights Reserved
An
All-Names Index
to the
1870 Census, Martin County, INDIANA
from microfilms and from scanned images of these microfilms
obtained from the National Archives
by
John L. Ragle
All Rights Reserved
PLEASE!
Read the notes on the following pages!
Brown 277-290
Center 291-305
Columbia 307-317
Halbert 319-329
Shoals 331-337
Lost
River 339-350
McCameron 351-363
Mitchelltree 365-377
Perry 379-391
Loogootee 392-401
The data are arranged in
alphabetic order by surname. They include:
(a) Surname,
(b) given name and initial, if any,
(c) age,
(d) place of birth,
(e) township,
(f) census page number [remember that each census ‘page’
actually consists of two pages of 40 names each].
Key to special symbols
used:
? [on
surname] implies
that the surname was partially illegible and the recorded result is the best
attempt of the transcriber.
? [on given
name] implies that the given name or initial was partially
illegible and the recorded result is the best guess of the transcriber. If the
name is in question, the ‘?’ follows the name, and if it is the initial which
is in question, the ‘?’ follows the initial.
0 [zero, for
age] Fractional ages, e.g.
7/12, as are found in the census for infants under the age of 1 year, were not
entered. 0 [zero] was used in this case. Illegible ages are marked with a ?.
Other notes bearing particularly on spellings in the
archival record:
1. It is clear from the spellings used by the enumerators
that they were neither more nor less literate than those whom they were
recording. NO ATTEMPT has been made to correct or otherwise modify
spellings to bring them into line with modern expectations. The spellings are
those of the census. It must be remembered that the spelling of names,
especially given names, was not as standardized as at present. A spelling may
represent that actually given to the enumerator, or it may represent what the
enumerator thought he heard, or it may represent the enumerator’s best guess as
to the spelling. Some of the enumerators
still used the old form of ‘ss’ which looks very much like ‘ps’ or ‘fs’ when
written, and one enumerator used the old form of ‘s’ when that letter
terminates a word.
2. Spellings of names have evolved since 1870. Names such
as “Sintha,” “Joshuaway,” “Elliner,” “Manervy,” or “Johnathan” are spelled
differently today than they were then. Again, NO ATTEMPT has been made
to interfere with the spellings in the archival record.
3. In a number of cases among the members of my own
extended family in Martin County, the enumerator simply recorded the name
incorrectly. This has nothing to do with evolution of spelling, as I know from
other contemporary documentation that the person whose name was recorded
incorrectly in the census used the correct spelling from an early age. Similar
mistakes doubtless happened in other families. Examples abound: Riely is listed
as a given name where evidently Riley was meant. Families living adjacent to
one another have one group spelling their surname ‘Monday’ and another ‘Mondy.’
The name ‘Michael’ is consistently misspelled, etc. Once again, NO ATTEMPT
has been made to interfere with the spellings in the archives.
4. There are a few cases in the record where the
enumerator simply went off the deep end. For example, one record has ‘Kentucky’
entered in the ‘occupation’ field and ‘Indiana’ in the ‘place of birth’ field.
Interchanges of first and last name also apparently occur: ‘William Robert’ –
is this ‘Robert Williams’ or ‘William Roberts?’ Ink blots, attempts to write
over entries, bad penmanship – all these things abound. Don’t assume that an
entry is incorrectly transcribed just because it doesn’t make sense. An
instance: ‘Jame’ as a given name. Is this ‘Jane’ with extra humps in the ‘n’ or
is it what we would now write as ‘Jamie?’ There are a few cases in which the
enumerator did not enter a given name.
5. Place of Birth. The abbreviations used for the states of the USA are the ones currently
in use, e.g. ‘Indiana’ is IN, not IA. Certain assumptions have been made, e.g.
‘Masouria’ was taken to be Missouri. Foreign POB entries offer some problems.
Respondents, particularly from Germany, sometimes gave the “Land” e.g. Baden,
rather than the country. In most cases it is clear what is meant, but in a few
cases I have added a curt comment.
6. A final comment on the entries – if you, as
researcher, believe a record to have been transcribed incorrectly, the writer
will make an attempt to provide an image of the individual record so that you
can decide for yourself how it should read. Please! No flames! I did the best I
could on a very tedious task. There is no additional warranty of any sort
implied for the Index.
Originally I undertook this project on a volunteer basis
for the Indiana Genealogical Society, of which I am a member. The instructions
of the Indiana Genealogical Society for recording the index were to list only
the children 18 years or older for the head of household, but to list all the
children for other parents in the household.
Unfortunately,
the archives are not clear on this point. Heads of households were supposed to
be given separate numbers from dwellings, but some enumerators recorded only
one head of household per dwelling, regardless of the number of adults [and
families] in the dwelling, and others recorded several households [and therefore
heads of household] in those dwellings which contained several families.
Enumerators usually entered the children in inverse chronological order of age,
but this is often not the case. In some cases the male children apparently were
listed first, and in some cases there is no particular order to the ages. In a
sequence of ages such as [for example] 35 35 15 13 11 it is fairly obvious that
the children are the latter three and their parents probably the first
two. But in a sequence such as 35 11 13 18 7 3 the three-year old child might
be the child of the 18 year old, or the enumerator may simply have been told
the ages and names of the children ad lib by the person interviewed.
Consider
the single example of the occupants of Dwelling 85, p. 370b, Mitcheltree Twp.:
Baker Jessee K 52 KY
Baker Easter 50 KY
Baker David 23 IN
Baker Sarah 15 IN
Baker Alice 12 IN
Baker Emma 10 IN
Baker Bartemus 17 IN
Baker Niclos S 27 IN
Baker Ludica 24 IN
Baker Ottaway 3 IN
Baker Alexander 21 IN
Baker Tillman H 19 IN
These are listed in the order
in which the enumerator entered them on his pages. Jessee K Baker is indicated
as the only ‘Head of Household’ in the dwelling. Since the record does not
indicate relationships, no decision other than conjectural can be reached on
the relationships connecting these people, and therefore no basis exists for
implementing the instructions of the IGS. Very many cases of this type of
ambiguity occur in the records.
Because of these problems, I abandoned the format
suggested by the IGS and recorded all names in the archive. It is
important to emphasize that this index is not a product of the IGS. The
records transcribed are taken from high-resolution computer images of the
microfilms of the original census pages.
I hope this index will prove useful for those trying to
trace their families in Martin County. This index exists in both printed and
magnetic form. Permission to use a magnetic copy of this index is hereby given
to the Manager of the Martin County, Indiana Web Site. Several other copies
have been provided gratis to libraries in the area. Softbound copies of
the index are available at cost from:
Dr. John L. Ragle
12 Cold Spring Lane
Hadley, MA 01035
to whom further inquiries
should be directed.
Or contact John Ragle by
email at: John Ragle