Seeing Double?

I’ve been researching Andrew Jackson Stephens for years.  It’s long been a irritation of mine that I cannot find him in the 1870 census.  The other day, I decided to take a look at his neighbors in the 1860 census to see if I could find any names that I recognize and by golly, I did! I found ANDREW listed a 2nd time only 5 sheets away from the listing I already had!  While there are some minor differences, I am confident that it is the same family.

In the census record I had already found, Andrew, his wife Lucy and daughter Nancy E, age 1, are living with Andrew’s father’s family.  Andrew is listed as age 22, Lucy age 18. This census was taken on July 4.

In the newly discovered census – taken on July 3, “AJ” is listed as 24 years old, Lucy is 16 and “Elizabeth” is 1 and they are listed in their own household.  Normally, I’d be tempted to think this was a coincidence because of all the Stephens families living in the area at the time.  However, next door to AJ is Polly Stephens, who happens to be living with Andrew in the 1880 census in Russell County, Kentucky.  Polly, age 55, is listed with Elizabeth, age 30 and Andy, age 16.  In 1880, Polly is 70 years old and her relationship to Andrew is listed as an aunt.

Before, when I only had the 1880 census, I often wondered who’s aunt Polly was – Andrew’s or Lucy’s? Lucy’s maiden name was Stephens as well and I would assume (which is dangerous, I know) that Stephens was not Polly’s maiden name.  Lucy and AJ were married in Missouri and I’ve always thought that Lucy’s family must have been from there, so now, I think that Polly was probably Andrew’s aunt because of her proximity to Andrew’s family.  Andrew’s father DID have a sister named Polly born around 1810, but would she still be a Stephens in 1860?  Is Elizabeth her daughter and Andy her grandson? Or perhaps Polly never got married and she’s taking care of other family members…

So maybe I need to concentrate on finding Polly in 1870 to see if Andrew is nearby. Maybe there will be other clues to help me figure out at least ONE of the puzzles I have for that Andrew.

Off to search…

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Decisions, decisions

Ahhhh….an unexpected day for genealogy research.  I’m at home sick today so I thought I’d catch up on some genealogy emails. In a Genealogy Newsline email, I clicked on a link for newly posted Illinois Probate Scans on Family Search.  I decided to look for some information on family lines I haven’t researched in about 3 years on my husband’s line and found some great stuff!

As I went to update my group sheets and notes, I realized that my group sheets for this line were not converted to the Word template that I created in order to easily add my citations.  In other words, nothing in these groups sheets have citations. My typed notes have general citations in parentheses after each fact, but they are not in footnote form.

So my decision delimma.  I so seldom get to do research, do I spend my time today on the web site collecting new information or do I work on updating my group sheets to include citations?  The organizer in my desperately wants to update my notes and group sheets to include citations, but that’s not a quick fix and each file will lead to another file and so on.  I’m not happy with the way these files are organized on my computer, so I could update things today and then decide to reorganize files later, which would mean my links in the citations would be broken.

So I suppose that because of the very limited amount of time I have to work today (not to mention the pounding headache I have) I’ll probably collect more files to add to the “to be organized later” pile.  Maybe a nice compromise will be to convert the group sheets to my Word template and add a citation for the stuff I collect today so at least I’ll have THAT much done.

All in all, I’m just happy to be researching!

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