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Census data as a way to unlock genealogy

SALISBURY — Genealogist Bryna O’Sullivan gave a hands-on demonstration on how to use census records to trace one’s ancestors to an online audience on Saturday, April 3. The event was sponsored by the Scoville memorial Library.

O’Sullivan used www.familysearch.org, a service run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka the Mormons).  

Using the website requires setting up a free account. (After the talk, this reporter tried it out and in 10 minutes traced his great-grandfather to Ohio.)

O’Sullivan said there are two ways to use the website to search census records.

The first and more cumbersome method is to use the “catalog” feature on the website, using places names in “reverse hierarchy”— U.S., Connecticut, Lyme, for example.

The second and simpler method is to search for a specific census year. 

So type “1940 census familysearch” and go straight to the right page without any unnecessary fuss.

O’Sullivan said researchers often start at the 1940 search because there is a 72-year privacy seal on census records. 

Thus, in 2022, the 1950 census will be available for online researchers.

O’Sullivan then started tracing her ancestor, Olive O’Sullivan, beginning with the 1940 census.

As she moved backward through time, O’Sullivan pointed out idiosyncrasies in how census data were collected.

The censuses taken between 1790 and 1840 only included adult males by name, for instance, as heads of households.

Census data was taken orally, and often there was a discrepancy between what the respondent said and what the enumerator heard and wrote down.

“Spellings weren’t standardized,” she said. “Things were recorded as they were heard.”

Thus O’Sullivan reached a point where she had a Lucius Stark who was almost certainly the same as the Lucien Stark of the same town.

Then there was a Loarice L. Stark, listed in 1850 as a female, 10 years old.

O’Sullivan was confident this was Lucius. “I have no idea how he got enumerated as a 10-year-old girl.”

Patrick L. Sullivan

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