Brothers

I concentrated on the Boone County, Iowa area hoping to find Oliver's father. The only clue I had was Orlow. I found a listing for O.G. Oviatt which could be Orlow. In the index books I also found listings for additional Oviatt's. My plan was to check each of the names with the hope of  finding a connection somewhere, somehow...

O.G. Orlow was living with his brother, Andrew - this could be Orlow since the age and birth state matched.

1860 Census, Boone, Iowa; Roll: M653 312,Page: 319,Family History Library Film: 803312.

A few houses from Orlow was a listing for John P. Oviatt. Children did not always show up in the index books which made it difficult to target the name Oliver Oviatt. I was fortunate that Oliver was born around 1858 so he would probably show up in the 1860 Census.

BINGO... Oliver found - living with his father, John P. Oviatt and his mother, Elizabeth Oviatt. THRILLING!

I spent a great deal of time analyzing the data; carefully transcribing the information such as age, sex, place of birth and occupation. In addition to the facts shown above the 1860 Census also showed value of estate owned which is represented by the $2000 and $500 - value of real estate and value of personal estate.What seems modest today was substantial 150 years ago.

For many years researchers worked without indexes to most of the censuses. Slowly, over the years, indexing was completed for the earlier census records. Of course these indexes were published in books, not on the internet! The government provided a "soundex" index for some of the censuses 1880 and later, which is available on film. Now there are online and CD indexes to the censuses. 

The online census indexes are easy and convenient, but they contain errors and problems. Sometimes the book index or soundex is just what you need to find your ancestor in the census. If all else fails and going through the census page by page in the area where you think your ancestor should be is the only way to uncover them. Book indexes can be found at major genealogy libraries and are quite straightforward to use, although you have to watch for indexing problems. Using the soundex can be trickier, although again technology has come to our rescue and there are online aids. If you are going to use any post 1870 census records--and unless you and all your U.S. ancestors died prior to 1880  those records are essential.