OHMAHONI-L Archives

From: Richard Baith <>
Subject: [OHMAHONI-L] 1850 Green Township census
Date: Wed, 05 May 1999 16:36:19 -0800

Hi,

I was at the Archives today looking at the 1850 Mahoning County
census and noticed something strange in the Green Township info. It
seems to me that there are a large number of children living with
families other than their own.

Many times there are two children (usually teenagers) shown with the
same surname living with another family. For example John and Eli Wire
are living with the Henry Myers family. I think I can partly explain
this one because Henry's wife was Elizabeth Wire who may be a sister of
John and Eli, but I don't know that for a fact.

There seemed to be quite a few others. I know that some of them are
probably living with another family as a servant or farm laborer but
I've never noticed so many instances of this before, especially were
there are siblings doing it. I've looked at a lot of census records but
this is the first time I've seen this.

Were there any epidemics at about this time where the parents may
have died? How about particularly hard economic time to the point that
parents would "farm out " their kids? Any ideas?

Then again, maybe I'm just all wet and this is nothing unusual?

Dick

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• [OHMAHONI-L] 1850 Green Township census by Richard Baith <>