Martin
County, Indiana
Part of the USGenWeb Project
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 Copyright ©
1999 John L. Ragle All Rights Reserved
PLEASE!
Read the notes on the following pages!
Townships: Towns Census Pages
Baker
263-275
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
Rutherford
402-414
The data are arranged in alphabetic order by surname. They include:
-
Surname,
-
given name and initial, if any,
-
age,
-
place of birth,
-
township,
-
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:
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.:
Surname Given Age
POB
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.
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