Nativity, Part II

An earlier post discussed the relevance of nativity, or the place of one's birth, in your genealogy search. Here are a few other tips regarding nativity.

• When trying to document a family's residence across time, the birthplaces (and ages) of the family's children can help. In the example below, we can see that they family of Amos and Katherina Stidely must have lived in Virginia through at least 1844, when daughter Rachel was born, and moved to Illinois before 1849, when son William was born.

1850 census of Vermilion County, Illinois

• The 1870 federal census was the first to include basic information about the birthplace of a person's parent. There was one column to mark if the person's father was of foreign birth, and another if the mother was of foreign birth.

• The 1880 federal census was the first to include specific information about the birthplace of a person's parent. Keep in mind that this is not primary source information about the parent. Specifically, the person offering that information about their parent may not have the correct information.

• The abbreviation "IA" on the 1850 or 1860 census may refer to Indiana, not Iowa, as modern postal conventions would suggest.

• Finally--not every single detail on a census is correct, of course. Don't let a person's nativity on one record keep you from considering other information that appears to conflict. Or try to understand why there may be a conflict.