Great-grandma Hattie and the 1900 U.S. Federal Census

I've been doing a lot of clean-up of the way I had recorded census sources in my genealogy database. Trying to establish a sense of consistency in preparation of creating a website later this year.

Hattie (Clark) Kuhn

In the process, I ran across an case that had always amused me. My paternal great-grandmother was Hattie May Clark who married Adam Kuhn on 18 January 1898. Their first child and only son, Herbert Kuhn, was my grandfather and he was born on 05 November 1898.

Fast-forward to 1900 when the U.S. Federal Census recorded data for each household as of 01 June 1900. Sure enough, Adam and Hattie appear on the census living in a rented home at 1206 Fourth Street, Moundsville, WV. They had been married two years and Hattie was the mother of one child, still living. So far, so good.

However, Hattie also appears in another household next door at 1208 Fourth Street. She was recorded as a single daughter living with her parents, Samuel and Margaret Clark. Huh???

Both households show Hattie as being 21 years old, born in July 1878. Interestingly, older sister Della is also recorded as living with Samuel and Margaret - being 27 years old, born April 1873, and single. Is that true? Or is she also actually married and living somewhere else too?

A quick jaunt to one of my favorite websites, the Vital Research Records from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, and I found a marriage certificate for James Peters and Della V. Clark, married in Marshall County on 24 December 1889. Della was 18, which would equate to a birth circa 1872. And guess who the informant is ... Samuel Clark. So it's pretty safe to assume that this is the same Della.

Back to the census page, and just two households from Adam and Hattie I find James and Della Peters at 1202 Fourth Street. Here Della is recorded as 28 years old, born in April 1872, married for ten years, with two of three children still living.

So I think I've just figured out why my great-grandmother Hattie was listed in two households. It appears that Samuel and Margaret reported all of their children, regardless of whether they were single and living with them or married and living in another house. But why would they have reported Della and Hattie as single? My guess is that they just told the census enumerator names and birth dates – the enumerator probably assumed they were single.

Moral of this story … census records needs to be taken with a grain of salt. They contain a wealth of info - but it's good to find other sources that confirm it.  Names are frequently misspelled, and other info often contains mistakes, as in this story.  Be cautious!