APG-L Archives

From: Gordon Remington <>
Subject: Re: [APG] Is "Miss" for Mississippi or Missouri in the 1850?
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 08:42:41 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <ee.25a7673.2e86f921@aol.com>

Marie has a good point. Modern interpretation of abbreviations from 100 years ago is sometimes colored by modern experience. The situation has been complicated by the introduction of two letter postal abbreviations in the late 20th century.

Over 10 years ago, the speaker at a Meeting of the Professional Chapter of the Utah Genealogical Association (grandparent of the current SLC APG Chapter) was a person who had produced one of the first census indexes that reported age and place of birth as a further filtering factor in his 1860 census indexes, which were solely for the state of Indiana - fiirst county by county - then combined into a statewide index.

He said that he had learned many things in the process, including the astounding fact that between 1850 and 1860 there had bee a mass migration of Indianans to Iowa and back! He was remarking, of course, on children born in Indiana between 1850 and 1860 whose birthplace was listed as "Ia."

Fortunately, he had not yet published his indexes and we corrected his perception at that meeting. Of course, he was indexing heads and strays only, but those born in Indiana were given the two letter "IN" abbreviation in the final product.

On another occasion, a secretary at a research firm for which I worked typed a family group sheet for a family in Massachusetts and abbreviated "Massachusetts" as "MS" in every instance!

This prompted a memo that said "MS can stand for Manuscript, Mississippi, and Multiple Sclerosis, but never for Massachusetts!" (at least in modern usage).

This brings up the question of context. On another research problem, the ancestor left a diary that contained the abbreviation "N.S." for the place in which his father died in 1828. The ancestor was training for the ministry and had been attending the Auburn Theological
Seminary in Cayuga County, New York. This prompted research to be conducted in "North Sterling," a hamlet to the north of Auburn.

That having failed, research was undertaken in Nova Scotia - without result.

By the time I got the problem, all angles on "N.S." had supposedly been explored. I noted that a close friend and classmate of the ancestor who was mentioned frequently in the diary was from Southampton, New York [on Long Island]. Since the ancestor also had Long Island connections (he was a printer's apprentice in Jamaica, now Queens), I looked at Southampton on a map from the 1820s and noted a place called "North Sea."

In that place I found both the surname of the ancestor's close friend and in Southampton I found the ancestor's surname. At this point, someone else took over the project (it was a subcontract job) and I haven't kept up with its progress, if any.

The point of this long digression is that context is very important to the interpretation of abbreviations. If everything else about this family says "Mississippi," I would assume that's what "Miss" meant in 1850, make sure that I had covered all possible angles in that state and and not get sidetracked to "Missouri" until I had.

Gordon Remington



wrote:
In a message dated 9/25/2004 5:36:42 AM Eastern Standard Time,
writes:
If anyone thinks that "Miss" might possibly mean Missouri, I would search
those records. The only reason why I think it might possibly be is because
eventually, my great-grandmother and her husband did live in St. Louis.
Why take a chance? Check Missouri.

It is impossible to say, with complete certainty, what an enumerator chose to
do over 100 years ago.

Marie

Marie Varrelman Melchiori, CGRS, CGL
Melchiori Research Services, L.L.C.
---------------------------------------------------------------
CGRS, Certified Genealogical Records Specialist and CGL, Certified
Genealogical Lecturer are service marks of the Board for Certification of Genealogists,
used under license by Board-certified associates after periodic competency
evaluations.


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• Re: [APG] Is "Miss" for Mississippi or Missouri in the 1850? by Gordon Remington <>