Consistency, please!

Sometimes I have to wonder if our forefathers realized how significant their responses to census takers would be in the future. Of course, I wonder more if census takers had a lick of sense, but that's for another time...

I'm working on Steve's side of the tree for a bit and I have a particular person who was born in 1849, 1852, or 1854, depending on which source you look at. The 1852 and 1854 dates aren't right, since he was on the 1950 census. The parents' names are the same in all the documents, and their birthdates don't change, so I wonder why his change with the wind.His wife's birthdate changes also, from 1854 to 1860, but their son's is always the same, 1885. Interesting. I hope I can find something to document their birthdates for sure.

Today I also encountered the first person in the family who was killed in Vietnam.  We have other Vietnam vets in the family, but as near as I can recall, this is the first casualty. It made me sad. I remember the Vietnam War pretty clearly - in retrospect I have a hard time wrapping my head around the numbers killed everyday that was on the news every night. Back then, it didn't mean much, but as I got older I thought about it more and more. I really respect our Vietnam Vets, maybe they didn't want to go and do what they had to do in Vietnam, but they went. They didn't deserve to be ridiculed, called vile names, and even physically assaulted for doing what their country expected them to do. It was the government people should have been mad at, not the soldiers. What a horrible place to go and do horrible things and then have your country shun you when you come home. Awful sad, tragic, really.

Getting off my soapbox, it was terribly sad to find one of our family a casualty of that war. Just know, we thank you for your service.

For the Love of Pete

This is my rant for today. I get annoyed, no; I get VERY annoyed with people who make changes to files, such as the census, simply to "fit" their particular family.  I'm thinking, if it doesn't make sense and the names are wrong (let alone the sexes being different) it's probably NOT your family. For example, I have a male in my family, Omar Phillip Rosvold married to Isola Curry. Back in 1910 when Omar was still living at home with his parents, Andreas and Ella in Burleigh County, North Dakota. I realize that Rosvold is a fairly common surname in the north, i.e., North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. However, when the 1910 census clearly lists Omar P as being the son of Andreas and Ella, why do you think it's okay to change it to Erma P is the DAUGHTER of ANDREW and Ella? Did you even follow Omar/Erna into adulthood to find that he/she married a woman named Isola in 1930 something? There ARE men named Andrew, maybe Andreas eventually went by the name of Andrew, but in 1910 he was Andreas and his SON was named Omar!

I'll be honest, the census takers throughout history have not been the best spellers in the world (as a matter of fact Isola, is Isola Cory in the 1920 census), but there are other clues to look at to make sure you have the right person before you go changing names and or the sex of people. Sometimes the transcriptionists are the sharpest either, but I know they try and sometimes the handwriting is awful. Just please, please think twice before making changes in something like the census. Your Erna is still wandering around waiting for you to find her. My Omar is back where he belongs.