This is some info I sent offline to Monique Riley who also responded to the post.
Here is why the actual effective date is important. Imagine a case of a husband and wife who were married in January 1885. The wife was pregnant at the time of the marriage and gave birth in early May. The enumerator came by the household in late May, didn't follow the instructions correctly (which was common) and enumerated all 3 family members. That entire census entry would be bogus. The husband should have been enumerated as living at his parent's house where he probably resided on January 1st. Same thing for the wife and she should have been listed under her maiden name. The name of the baby should not have appeared in the census at all. The dwelling should have been listed as vacant. This 4 or 5 month time lag created a lot of potential errors. Brian in CA From: LegacyUserGroup [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Don Quigley Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2016 5:36 PM To: 'Legacy User Group' Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] 1885 Iowa State Census Thanks, Brian. For some reason I had the OCD for the 1885 Iowa Census as Jun 1. Fortunately, there are only 10 master sources for this census in my database, so I can manually change them without too much effort - ie, the Search & Replace bug for master sources won't be an issue for me ;) . Don Quigley Escondido, CA [email protected] From: LegacyUserGroup [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Brian L. Lightfoot Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2016 4:52 PM To: 'Legacy User Group' <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] 1885 Iowa State Census OK, answering my own post (I'm used to talking to myself.) I found the answer and the 1885 Iowa State Census had an effective date of January 1st. Which means that most enumerations done that year were indeed 4 or 5 months late. I found this by looking at images of the enumerations as found on Family Search but scrolled to the very first image of that particular area or township. Generally there are 2 or 3 pages of text which define the rules the enumerators were to follow and there buried in the text was the instruction to write in names of persons "whose home on the first day of January, 1885." Realizing that many enumerators never followed the rules exactly, this four or five month offset from the actual data collection changes many births, deaths, marriages, and ages. Just proves that census records aren't all that reliable. Brian.still in CA From: LegacyUserGroup [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Brian L. Lightfoot Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2016 4:37 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [LegacyUG] 1885 Iowa State Census I have some events in my family file that reference the 1885 Iowa State Census but I'm trying to determine the official effective date of this particular census. Was it January 1st, April 1st, or June 1st? I've gone through so many different web sites in order to make a determination yet strangely this bit of info is missing about the 1885 census. I did manage to view a copy of the official final report (not the enumeration sheets) which mentioned the effective date was January 1st and they hope the legislature would change it to June 1st to coincide with the US Census. However, when I view any of the actual enumeration sheets, they are dated in April or May. Was the 1885 Iowa State Census started 4 months late? I found one web site which stated the effective date was June 1st but I can't see how that can be true if the enumerations were done 2 months earlier. Anyone feel like enlightening me? Brian in CA The water rates have been raised so now the drought is over
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