Make sure you pay close attention to the family and dwelling numbers that appear in columns two and three at the left-hand side of censuses taken in 1850 and later. A number of times I have found that pages have either been originally microfilmed out of order--or perhaps the order became confused when the pages were imaged for the Internet. Line numbers in censuses earlier than 1850 can also be important. Several times I have found that in these earlier censuses the page listing the names follows the page giving the totals and other information instead of preceding it like it should. Occasionally I have found that two pages have been displaced by several pages.

Family and dwelling numbers become critical in the later censuses especially when your family appears at the top or bottom of the page. You may miss family members listed on the previous or following page. Even worse, you may add children to the family that do not belong to it if, as is true in many cases, the enumerator did not rewrite the last name on the following page. At the very least, you may get wrong information about your family's neighbors.

Sometimes the microfilming or imaging process may even place pages belonging in one township in a completely different township. This commonly happens when the enumerator did not start a new page when beginning to enumerate another township in the district. It also happens when the imaging process attempts to separate an incorporated area within the township and place it in a separate indexing entity.

A number of times I have also seen where two or more townships are imaged together and then listed under only one indexing entity; a hypothetical example would be if Big Grove Township, Monroe Township, and Cedar Township in Johnson County, Iowa, were all listed under Big Grove Township. (This is becoming less common as the indexes are being continually worked on.)

Happy hunting!

Thanks to Ellen Applegate for today's Quick Tip! If you have a tip you would like to share with researchers, you can send it to ADNeditor@ancestry.com.

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