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Tracks in Decades of Snow
by Val Atkinson
Article ID: 17, First Published: December 2004A Native American creation myth tells how, at the beginning, before the first great thaw, people thought snow was for food, and were furious when Coyote ‘cooked’ it, making it useless for eating.
Coyote had to teach how snow, properly melted, watered plains, grew seeds, cleaned homes, clothes and bodies, and filled rivers with fish. He:
• Taught how fallen snow showed clearly the animal tracks they needed to follow when hunting.
• Demonstrated how it was not a food in itself, but a means of obtaining it.
• Showed how it was an all embracing and life giving force.
AND SO WE COME TO THE CENSUS, which is similarly:
• Known yet unknown
• Valued yet undervalued
• Used yet underused
• Crystal clear yet cloudy
• To appreciate the census fully we might need to ‘listen to Coyote’, and be:
• Taught about it properly
• Calmer than usual: no anger please.
• Teachable and able to capitalise on free offers
• Willing to follow every lead to the end of the trail: doggedly determined
TRUST ME IN THIS:
‘Proper’ genealogists use consecutive census records as a ‘Family Tracking Mechanism’ because of its multiple advantages, a few of which can be:
• Birth place of mother leads to her marriage place
• Age of eldest child gives an approximate marriage for parents
• Birth gaps indicate possible infant deaths
• Birth places direct us to parish baptisms.
• Occupations help identify families with common names
Our ancestors DID move about but their lives had a simpler pattern. They grew up, married, and had children on a regular basis. This regularity is a boon for us their descendants, because they left tracks.
Exceptions always prove the rule, but we don’t let exceptions phase us.
We’re here to crack the ancestor problem, and we don’t get discouraged.
We learn general skills with a view to specialising, a bit like addition and subtraction.
We don’t go about working out columns of fictitious numbers, we shop and calculate the bill.
And so to tracking William TULIP:
1841 CENSUS: SWALWELL DURHAM HO107 302 33 18
William TULIP 10 born County Durham (with parents three brothers and one sister)
1851 CENSUS: WHICKHAM DURHAM HO 107 2403 82 53
William TULIP son U 19 sawyer born Whickham (with father and two brothers)
1861 CENSUS: LOW WALKER NORTHUMBERLAND RG9 3845 9 12
William TULIP head M 29 Foreman of timber yard born Whickham ( with wife and two children)
1871 CENSUS: 1 CARR’S COTTAGES WALKER NORTHUMBERLAND RG10 5124 69 52
William TULIP head M 39 Timber Agent born Dunston (with wife six children and two boarders)
1881 CENSUS RAVENSWORTH ROAD WHICKHAM DURHAM RG11 5043 39 32
William TULIP head M 49 Timber yard foreman Whickham (with wife and six children)
1891 CENSUS: 272 RAVENSWORTH ROAD WHICKHAM DURHAM RG12 4187 26 45
William TULIP head M 59 Wood foreman timber born Whickham(with wife, daughter, son in law and boarder)
1901 CENSUS; 6 CLAVERING AVENUE DUNSTON DURHAM RG13 4762 110 14
William TULIP head W 69 Foreman timber yard born Whickham(widower, daughter, son in law and boarder)
Each census generates questions and an action plan. Your family history is etched into ten year cycles like these.
Each of us will have at least one ‘ideal’ family to cut our teeth on as we learn to track effectively.
Use these skills for the families that keep ‘getting away’ or who won’t even surface.
How sad it is to see ‘general’ family trees with lists of ‘circa’ census births.
These are the short sighted family histories of people who:
• Eat snow
• Avoid going out in the cold
• Get angry when people try to explain things
• Have ‘partial identity’ ancestors
• Turn their backs on free offers
• Ignore Coyote
• Think ‘circa’ is a person
I recommend tracking not just for information, but for the sheer fun of it!
Keep your eyes on the trail put on your winter clothes, and follow family tracks to eternity through decades of snow.
This isn’t the last you’ve heard of the census!
