Lincoln's birthday

[STS Lincolnite]

(01-12-2017 03:38 PM)Steve Wrote:  Typically a sheriff would deputize somebody and they would go house to house taking the census. The date on the 1850 census is November 7th, so if he was on the circuit then presumably Mary would have given the information. If he was home, they could've given the census taker the information together.

The responsibility for taking the census was that of the U.S. Marshals until the 1880 census (in an 1879 act the marshals were replaced by specially trained and hired census takers). A Marshal would appoint a deputy to conduct the census in a local neighborhood, town/village, district, etc. depending on where the census was to be taken. That deputy was to be a local person who had familiarity with the people of the given community and had to swear an oath. I suspect there was little training and instruction on how to gather the information even if this was officially to be the case. The information was not necessarily even given by a family member (although it was preferred). See the following from the instructions for the 1850 census (underlines are mine):

“Section 10. And be it further enacted, That each assistant, when duly qualified in manner aforesaid, shall perform the service required of him, by a personal visit to each dwelling-house, and to each family, in the subdivision assigned to him, and shall ascertain, by inquiries made of some member of each family, if any one can be found capable of giving the information. but if not. then of the agent of such family, the name of each member thereof, the age and place of birth of each, and all the other particulars specified in this act, the tables thereto subjoined, and the instructions of the Secretary of the Interior; and shall also visit personally the farms, mills, shops, mines, and other places respecting which information is required, as above specified, in his district, and shall obtain all such information from the best and most reliable sources ; and when, in either case, the information is obtained and entered on the tables, as obtained, til the same is complete, then such memoranda shall be immediately read to the person or Persons furnishing the facts, to correct errors and supply omissions, if any shall exist.”

There is a full document on those instructions that can be found here:
https://www.census.gov/history/www/throu...tions.html

The main reasons for taking the census I think were two fold – taxation purposes and to determine the apportionment of Congressional representatives. Though the other information was taken, it was not the considered as important at the time (especially at the local level where the census was actually taken) and I highly doubt much if any time was taken to verify anything. As has been stated there were plenty of individuals who just didn’t know when or where they were born so whatever information was given was just accepted. There was a fine of $30 that could be levied against anyone who knowingly gave inaccurate information but I doubt that was ever strictly enforced (and would probably be hard to prove anyway). It is also worth remembering that 1850 saw a radical change in the amount of information that was gathered in the census. It was a new process so inaccuracies were bound to be present.

Speaking on the case of the Lincoln’s we can’t assume that either Abraham or Mary were the ones that provided the information. If neither was available when the census taker came, it could have been a domestic servant, or a neighbor that provided the information or, depending on who the census taker was, that person could have just put in an estimate of the Lincoln’s ages if he knew them well enough. The less time spent for the census taker the better for them and they got to get that paperwork done!

In studying my own family history, the information (ages as well as other information) on the census can go from pretty accurate to wildly inaccurate from census to census. Census records are good and more reliable with respect to location, and a good place to start from on other information but are frankly not all that reliable with that other info. There is one census record I looked at that all the people's ages ended either in a 5 or 0. Someone took it upon themselves to estimate and just round to the 5s!

All that being said, I have no doubt that Mary would not be above “fudging” her age if it was in fact her that did report to the census taker. As far as Abraham goes, I think that anything that gives his date of birth and is written in his own hand is the best and most accurate source we can hope to get.