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Welcome to the Trautmann/Troutman Early Records in America Project! If this is your first time here, please read this page so you will have a better understanding of this site.
Outline:
I have been studying my North Carolina Troutmans for about 10 years. Often, I would pick up a book at random and go to the index, and look for "Troutman" or "Trautman". Or, in the past few years, I would search the Internet for those names. More often than not, the reference was to another Troutman family. At the time, I was interested in all early North Carolina Troutmans, but I did not care much about other Troutman lines.
Gradually, my thinking changed. People began asking me about Troutman lines other than my own, and I would remember running across something. A couple years ago, I corresponded with Steve E. Troutman, and he was nice enough to send me a copy of The Trautman/Troutman Family History, Volume II. Until then, I knew a little about the other Troutman families in the South, and I had a vague idea about the Troutman families in Pennsylvania. Steve's book really opened my eyes to the wider world of Troutmans in America.
So, I began thinking about doing something like this site. However, the thought of trying to find all those Troutmans on microfilm at the library was rather daunting, especially with my chaotic work schedule. What made this site feasible for me was the advent of online Census images at Ancestry.com, coupled with that site's powerful search feature.
The basic goal was to find every Troutman in the United States who was shown in the early Censuses, 1790-1850, and to present that data in a web site. I think I am fairly close to that goal, although it is probably not possible to absolutely attain it. Genealogy is not an exact science. A lot of the records here may be new to some researchers, because they are not listed in any of the standard Census indexes. Hopefully, this will help some researchers with a "lost" family.
My secondary goal was to show how the Troutmans in the early censuses were related by assigning each individual to his proper "line" or tree. I think I have had mixed results in achieving this goal. On the other hand, I think I have found some connections that no one else has put together before.
Another reason this project was possible is that Troutman is a relatively rare name. Then, as now, Troutmans made up a very tiny fraction of the US population. This made finding most of them possible. Even so, I was fairly amazed at what I found: over 1250 Troutmans in the 1850 Census. In addition, a few southern Troutman families held a total of about 150 slaves in 1850, the ancestors of the African-American Troutman lines.
This site is about Troutmans in the first seven Federal Censuses of the United States (1790-1850). It is not about German Trautmann genealogy, colonial Trautman history, wills, probate records, tax lists, etc., although all those things are related.
Here is where I have to be the bad guy to keep from getting inundated with email questions I cannot possibly answer. I CANNOT HELP ANYONE WITH THEIR RESEARCH!!! The only Troutmans I really know about are those from North Carolina born before 1900. I know next to nothing about other Troutmans in other times and locations, so please do not ask.
Troutman is the Anglicized version of the German surname Trautmann. The name has a lot of valid spelling variations:
T + R + AU + T + M + A + NN
D OU DT N
D
That is 2 x 1 x 2 x 3 x 1 x 1 x 2 = 24 valid spelling variations.
The Troutman surname is similar to several others, and these names often get confused: Traut/Trout, Trautner/Troutner, Trautwein/Troutwine, Trotman, Treatman, Trotter, Trentham/Trantham. Sometimes a Troutman gets indexed as one of these or vice versa. Some of the names are less common than Troutman, so it is possible to check to see if they were actually Troutmans, but other names, particularly Traut/Trout, are so common that checking them all is not feasible.
A special note on the Trotman surname. I used to think that Troutman and Trotman were unrelated names. Troutman was German, Trotman was English, and they are pronounced differently. Now I realize things are not so clear cut. The 1850 Census reveals a handful of Trotmans from Germany (some spelled Trottman). Some of the early Troutmans occasionally appear as Trotman in early records, and vice versa. Also, a few Georgia Trotmans of English ancestry began spelling their name Troutman around 1850 and it stuck! So, not every Troutman you run across is of German ancestry.
As noted above, I used Ancestry.com to locate these people. That was actually a lot harder than it sounds. First of all, there were a lot of Troutman families in the first seven censuses. Secondly, not all Ancestry.com images are linked, and a few (about 10 percent) are linked incorrectly.
First I knocked out those that were easy to find, listed in the indexes as Trautman or Troutman. Then I went after the harder-to-find ones. I used Ancestry's advanced search features to search by both Soundex and wildcard patterns. Census indexes have a lot of mistakes, and names were often badly misinterpreted. Often, I had to search by an individual by first name alone within a particular year, state, and county (it helped to know the township).
Some of the Troutmans I found I already knew about, and others I never knew existed before. I read books and web pages, doing a lot of research to find where Troutman families ought to be, and I often found them there, although they were badly indexed or not indexed at all. The lesson here is that if you are reasonably sure they were there, look!
For each census record, I list the state (two-letter postal abbreviation), county, township, microfilm roll, and page. If a township was not specified within the county, I list it as ntl, or "No Township Listed". Page numbers are the stamped page numbers where I could find them, otherwise I might use the handwritten numbers. Remember that each stamped page number in the 1850 Census represented two actual pages, so be sure to look at both.
In 1850, the printed census form had 42 lines per page. For each person, I give his or her line number. Households often spanned pages, so it is not uncommon to see children with a line number lower than their parents. The page number given is the page the household began in. For each family, I include the page number, household number, and a tree (or line) designation.
The other data in the 1850 Census I collected was surname, first name(s), age, gender, race, and place of birth.
Surname - I only copied Troutmans, even if there were non-Troutmans in the households. I know of Troutmans in the 1850 Census who were listed under other names (for example, step-children listed under their step-father's surname). I did not copy these. Likewise, I know a few of the people I did copy as Troutmans were not actually Troutmans.
Given name(s) - I copied these as best as I could read them. I did not expand abbreviated names like you will find in census indexes. Instead, you will find the name as written in the census - Jno (John), Jas (James), Jos (Joseph), Jon (Jonathan), Chas (Charles), Wm (William), Margt (Margaret), etc.
Age, gender, race - I copied as best as I could read. Occasionally, I saw where the census taker obviously wrote the wrong gender for the person, but I have not corrected this. Every Troutman in the 1850 Census was white. I did not find a single free black Troutman. The slave Troutmans were listed in separate Slave Schedules that did not list their names, just age and race (black or mulatto).
Place of birth - if born in the US, I used the two-letter postal abbreviation of the state, although the census taker may have written the full name or used some other abbreviation. A few census takers went beyond the call of duty and wrote the county and state the person was born. In that case, I wrote the postal abbreviation followed by the county, for example, "NC Cabarrus". For those born outside the US, I copied exactly what the census taker wrote. A couple quick notes about the about the abbreviations used by enumerators in 1850: "O" stood for Ohio, not Oklahoma or Oregon (I have actually seen this a few times!!). "Ia" stood for Indiana, not Iowa. "IA" is the modern postal abbreviation for Iowa, but in 1850 it meant Indiana. I have seen this mistake many, many times.
A lot of people were missed, and a lot of information is wrong. The Pre-1850 Censuses have their own problems which I talk about below; here I will just talk about general problems with census records.
Some people were missed and some were counted more than once. I have done my best to find every Troutman, but some will never be found. Some were missed accidentally, and some probably dodged the census taker, thinking they would have to pay more taxes, or would be drafted into the military.
I will not go into every facet of why information is incorrect, or why census records are hard to read, since that is covered better by other authors. Here is a very good primer on census records: Census Records - History and How to Use them. A lot of very early Census records were destroyed. For example, we will never find the Troutmans who were in Kentucky in 1790, because the entire 1790 Census for Kentucky was destroyed when the British burned Washington in the War of 1812. In a few cases, tax lists have been used to "recreate" the censuses, although the tax lists rarely have the same kind of information.
Before 1850, Census records list only the head of household by name. The people in the household were listed in various categories of age, gender, and race. Those new to genealogy tend to dismiss these records as useless or too complicated but they are not. They pinpoint families in locations at specific times. Also, with a little work, the numbers can be understood. However, it usually takes other records, such as marriage, birth, or later census records to understand who these numbers represented.
There are two problems with Pre-1850 Census records that most people do not realize: they were hand-copied, and they were often partially alphabetized.
Several copies of the census records were made to be kept by the federal, state, and local governments. The copy we have on microfilm today is often not the "original" that the enumerator made as he went door to door. Since they did not have photocopiers yet, they were perforce hand-copies. Of course, mistakes were made during the copying on top of the mistakes normally made in a census. The person doing the copying had to be able to read and understand the handwriting of the original. They did their best, but mistakes were made. For example, the 1810 Census of Rowan Co, NC shows a Martin Troutman and a Joshua Troutman. It took me years to figure out whose these people were, since they did not fit into my Troutman family tree in any way. Luckily, the 1810 Census of Rowan was not partially alphabetized (see below), so the people are listed in the order they were visited. By looking at the neighbors, and other information such as county marriage records and earlier and later censuses, I realized "Joshua" Troutman was actually George Troutman, who fit nicely in my tree. Martin "Troutman" was actually Martin Trantham, not a Troutman at all!!
Another proof that the early census records were copied it that you will often see that they are partially alphabetized. By "partially alphabetized", I mean that they are not in perfect alphabetical order, but all the "A" surnames are together, all the "B" surnames are together, etc. I am not sure why the census takers did this. They certainly did not crisscross the countryside enumerating the people in this order. One problem with these partially alphabetized censuses is that you lose the sense of who the neighbors were. The bigger problem was that many families were lost in this alphabetizing process. For example, in 1840, Cabarrus Co, NC was divided into militia districts, and each enumerator handled a district. Most of the Troutmans lived in one district. The enumerator of that district partially alphabetized the people, and in the process, left out every surname that began with "T"!! Not only did he miss leave out a half dozen Troutman families, but other surnames as well, such as Trexler.
The Census Indexes commonly used today were created by Advanced Indexing Systems (AIS). They can be useful, but they are full of mistakes, some avoidable, some not.
Most egregious is that some portions of counties, and some entire counties, were not indexed at all!! Again, if you are reasonably sure the person was there, look yourself, no matter what the indexes say.
A lot of people are listed in the wrong county. This usually happens when the counties are on the same roll of microfilm. The page number for the person on the roll is correct, but the county is wrong. A lot of page numbers are wrong. Usually, it is only by a page or two. A lot of places listed as "Unknown Township" or "No Township Listed" actually did have a township listed.
If two or more people with the same exact name are on the same page, they are often indexed just once. For example, I once found three John Troutman families on the same page, when the index said their was just one.
The biggest problem with census indexes, however, is that names were misinterpreted or typographical errors. Every surname has several ways it can be misinterpreted. I learned what the main ones are for Troutman.
These are the most common, but there are lots of others. Often, these misinterpretations are not real names. I go to the Switchboard.com site which has the white pages telephone listings for the entire US to see if anyone has that name today.
There is the strong possibility that some of the people I listed as Troutmans were not Troutmans. I may have misinterpreted a name such as Troutner. Also, I have discarded a few "false positives" - people who were indexed as Troutman, but when I found them in the record, I saw the name was clearly something else, such as Troutwine.
I hope this site is informative and helpful. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, write me. If you know where some Troutmans were in the early Census that I have missed, please let me know.
Thanks,
Robert E. Burke
robertburke@juno.com
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