What Was the Census Taker Thinking?

I've been working on the Family Search Record Search Site or the New Family Search Beta site - same info different formats - and finding lots of good stuff. One was a marriage record for William W. Dunham in Montana, son of Job Dunham and Hannah Percival (Percivil on the record). Of course, I had no idea he had gone to Montana. With this information I went to Ancestry to look for William Dunham in Montana, and of course, he wasn't there! If you use a search engine as much as I do, you will know that sometimes less is more. So I tried again, removing Montana from the search and there was William and Almeda Dunham and their family in Fremont County, Idaho. I found them again in 1910 and by 1920 Almeda was a widow. I found her in Pocatello, Idaho as recently as the 1938-39 City directory. I searched and searched before I found a death record for Margaret Almeda Dunham. Yeesh, what you have to go through to find stuff.

In looking over the 1910 census for this family, I had to wonder about the census transcription. You see, she transcribed Clod for Claud. Poor kid!

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