Bill Veselik, Archivist for the F.B. Kegley Library at Wytheville Community College pens the feature article in the Virginia Genealogical Society Magazine's latest issue.
A genealogical article written by William A. “Bill” Veselik, Archivist for the F.B. Kegley Library at Wytheville Community College, is the feature article in the latest issue of the Virginia Genealogical Society Magazine. The article is entitled “Enumerating the Dead.” The article is a cautionary tale relating to federal census records and the potential pitfalls of assuming that the information contained in them is entirely accurate. Veselik uses examples from his own family to relate the story of how deceased individuals ended up being enumerated in at least two census years, 1900 and 1920.
“My great-grandparents, the Michael and Victoria Allen, reported that their son, Robert Bonham Allen, was five years of age in the 1900 census of Radford,” the author explained. “In fact, little Robert had been born in 1894 and had died of the measles in 1896. Then, Robert’s mother, Victoria, passed away from cancer in 1917 and her husband still reported her as living during the enumeration of the 1920 census.” Veselik theorizes that his great-grandparents reported their late son as being alive in 1900 as a way of memorializing him, since Robert had been born after the enumeration of the 1890 census.
“I can see that happening once,” he said, “but it’s still unusual for her husband to have reported that his wife was alive in 1920, when she had died in 1917.” The problem this creates is obvious: If an individual is found in a census record, it is reasonable to most researchers to assume that the person was, in fact, still living. Once that assumption is made, however, problems can ensue. “If a researcher finds an ancestor’s name in a census record, the next step is to check the census record that followed ten years later,” Veselik noted. “If the person isn’t in the next census, most researchers will assume that the individual died sometime between the two census enumerations. In fact, that individual may have died before the earlier census record and that can complicate the search for a missing death record.”
Genealogical articles written by Veselik have been published previously in the Magazine of Virginia Genealogy, the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society Newsletter, and Stirpes, the journal of the Texas State Genealogical Society. His articles on historical events and local families have been published in the Smyth County News & Messenger and the Wytheville Enterprise. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Virginia Tech and worked as Public Relations Coordinator for Wytheville Community College before he retired and became the archivist for the F.B. Kegley Library at WCC in 2015. The F.B. Kegley Library, established in 1968, is a local and regional genealogical and historical research center located in the library at WCC.
###