Last week, we explored how to use the members of a family group – as a “cluster” – to track a family across several federal census households. This article will explore how to use another aspect of “cluster genealogy” to identify your ancestors, specifically, identifying the neighbors.
In most neighborhoods, there live people who have been there for years. Nearly every neighborhood, in fact, has at least one family who has lived in the same house their entire lives. As you go back into history, especially prior to the advent of most forms of mass transportation, you will find that the majority of land-owners stayed in the same area for many years, and their children may have even lived in the same house after their deaths.
For the sake of continuity, we will take a look at the same family identified last week: Thomas J. and Jane Ferguson, of Laurens Co., South Carolina. To get a limited, but sufficiently broad, idea of their neighbors, we will list the heads of the five households enumerated prior to and after their household.
In 1910, these neighboring households were as follows:
John C. Jacks, age 61, White, Male
Charles Dillard, age 62, Black, Male
Kane Dillard, age 24, Black, Male
Amiri Johnson, age 39, Black, Female
Henry Turner, age 60, Black, Male
Jane Ferguson, age 60, B, Female
John Prater, age 28, Black, Male
Young Dillard, age 24, Black, Male
Thomas Young, age 50, Black, Male
Dane Cannon, age 35, Black, Male
Hatty Byrd, age 23, Black, Female
In this specific case, each of the heads of household, including Jane Ferguson, rented their homes rather than owning them, as determined by the questions regarding home ownership. This limits the possibility that there will be any long-time residents. By extending the search a little further we find, just above John C. Jacks, two home-owners:
George C. Young, age 60, W, M
Thomas H. Little, age 50, W, M
And two households below Hatty Byrd, we find two more home-owners:
Isack W. Adare, age 61, W, M
Will J. Henry, age 47, W, M
Now, you must locate the 1900 federal census record for the Ferguson household, and go through the same process. We will include the extended search here, in order to attempt to capture the home-owners (marked with a *):
* Isaac W. Adair, age 52, W, MHenry Bailey, age 40, B, M
Henry Gore, age 44, B, M
Bill Irby, age 44, B, M
Thos. H. Little, age 40, W, M
Chas. Adair, age 50, B, M
Jack Little, age 60, B, M
Tom J. Ferguson, age 60, B, M
* Geo. C. Young, age 50, W, M
Carrie Rieder, age 24, B, F
Kittie Rook, age 54, B, F
Howard Bell, age 43, B, M
Ivans Martin, age 40, B, M
As you can already see in a comparison between these two neighborhoods, both of the home-owners (as opposed to renters) in the 1900 census appear in the 1910 census in the same general vicinity as the Ferguson household. This adds corroborating evidence that these two census records indeed represent the same family.
The 1890 federal census has been largely destroyed, so we will move backward to the 1880 federal census, and repeat this process:
Isaac Gary, age 51, B, MAbram Williams, age 68, B, M
W. Loundes Ferguson, age 34, W, M
Mark Williams, age 30, B, M
Ervin Young, age 35, B, M
Jake Thomas Ferguson, age 39, B, M
Isaac J. Adair, age 51, W, M
Thomas Wilson, age 52, B, M
Hamilton Hunter, age 25, B, M
Edmund Adair, age 65, W, M
Frances Owens, age 35, B, F
The 1880 federal census does not contain any information regarding home ownership, so it is impossible to know which of these heads of household owns the land on which they lived. There is the additional difficulty of a twenty-year gap in the records. During this interval, it is likely that many of the families moved away, with some of the older home-owners even dying.
By comparing these two records, however, we can be almost certain that the 1880 Jake Thomas Ferguson household is the same family as the 1900 Tom J. Ferguson household. None of the heads of household match exactly, but we do have the appearance of an Isaac J. Adair and Edmund Adair in 1880. In 1900 and 1910, one of the home-owners was named Isaac W. Adair. It would be impossible to equate one to the other, however the similarity in names suggests a possible relationship.
Finally, we will look at the names in the 1870 federal census, to see if these identifications confirm our findings. In the censuses taken between 1850 and 1870, a separate question asked the value of the real estate of each household. Using this information, we can identify home-owners (again, marked with a *):
* John W. Little, age 38, W, M
Adolphus Copeland, age 21, W, M
Edman Philson, age 35, B, M
Joseph Mason, age 35, B, M
Henry Peter, age 50, B, M
Robert Adair, age 40, B, M
Henry Thompson, age 61, B, M
Thomas Furgerson, age 21, B, M
* Isaac J. Adair, age 42, W, M
Ross Young, age 35, B, M
* Edman Adair, age 56, W, M
Morris Little, age 57, B, M
Once again, as you can see, members of the white Adair family surround the Ferguson household. In particular, Isaac J. Adair and Edmond Adair both appear within a reasonable distance from Thomas and Jane. Both of these Adairs are confirmed land-owners in 1870, as is a John W. Little, who may be related to the Thomas H. Little who owns land in the area in 1900 and 1910.
Using the corroborating “clusters” of the Ferguson family members, as discussed in the last post, and the Adair and other land-owning neighbors, we have been able to prove with a high degree of certainty that the Thomas and Jane Ferguson households identified in the last column was indeed the same family as it grew from 1870 to 1910.
If you enjoyed learning about the techniques of using “cluster genealogy” as explored in this column, you may enjoy The Family History Research Toolkit CD-ROM, published by Genealogical Publishing Co. This toolkit includes several “Household Tracker” forms, able to be filled out and saved using only the free Adobe Reader software, that will allow you to compare households from multiple census records. There is also a “Census Neighbors” form that will allow you to record the heads of households from the federal census.
For more information, visit this page on my website. Several free forms are available for download from the site.
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