52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 5 Census.

The theme for this 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is the Census.

There is more to genealogy than hatchem, matchem, and dispatchem[1].  The dates are important but that doesn’t tell you about the person, what they did for a living, how they lived their lives, their spouses and children and when they might have come to the USA.

The tool to use for that information is the federal census records.  The census were taken in the United States every ten years starting in 1790.  The only census that is missing is the 1890, it burned in a fire.  Some states also did a census every ten years starting 1855.

One of my ancestors, Horatio Nelson Moore, born in 1825 in Moore’s Mills, New Brunswick, Canada, came to this country sometime between 1857 and 1860.  When I trace him, I find that he married in 1850 to Mary Rose in St. Stephen, NB, Canada.  Their first child, Tristram, was baptized in 1851 in Canada.  The last child was born in Canada in 1857. Then I find the family in Mobile, Alabama in the 1860 census. This census made me look for further documents to find out why they came to Mobile, Alabama.

I checked back in the 1851 census in Canada for any of Horatio’s sisters and brothers and noted that one of his sisters was missing.  I then searched for her in the census. I found her, Emily Moore Williams with her husband and family living in Mississippi.  I did eventually received copies of letters Emily had written back to her parents confirming that Horatio had followed her family down south for work.

Through the years, in the census, Horatio was a music teacher, piano repairman, and a piano tuner.  In one of Emily’s letters she mentions that Horatio was giving voice lessons to her daughter.  Horatio also worked for the Chickering Piano Company as a piano tuner.  I researched patents and found he had a few concerning the workings of the piano for the Chickering Piano Company.  Horatio had his beginnings working with his brother John Warren Moore building furniture and pianos in St. Stephen, NB, Canada.

Also, Horatio was in Mobile during the Civil War, so I researched and found that he belonged to the British Guard.  It was a company with foreign born men who protected the docks in Mobile, Alabama during the war.

The census records gave me a more complete picture of my Great-Great Grandfather, Horatio Nelson Moore.

#52Ancestorsin52Weeks

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[1] Births, Marriages, and Deaths used by my genealogy mentor, James P. Reilly