Uncurrier

Well, no wonder I could never find Benjamin Franklin Currier and his family in the 1875 New York State census! Here they are, right in Nassau, Rensselaer, New York where they belong:The census taker apparently completely misunderstood that “Franklin” was the guy’s middle name and not his and his family’s surname. I like how No Name is 2/365 years old though.

But this record clears up (kind of) a bit of confusion. All the records from his son the young Benjamin Franklin Currier’s adulthood say he was born in New Jersey, yet his siblings all were said to have been born in New York and in the 1880 census it says young Benjamin was born in New York too. So I thought maybe he’d somehow gotten the idea into his own head he’d been born in New Jersey, but was wrong.

This census, though, says he was born in New Jersey with his immediate siblings born in Rensselaer County, New York. So it appears the 1880 census is wrong and the later documents are right.

Of course it’d help to check the 1870 census. If the family could be found in it. I can’t find it. I’ve tried searching from every angle I can think of, Currier or Courier or Franklin or no surname at all and just look for families with a Loella and a Benjamin, in New York and New Jersey and New Hampshire, and they just don’t come to light.

Nor can I find them in the 1865 New York census. But maybe they were in New Jersey then.

In the 1860 census they’re in Pittstown, Rensselaer, New York, and the elder Benjamin is indexed as Benjamin F. C. Currin; looks like the name actually written was Benjamin F. C. Currier. The C initial is another mistake.

I had found the family already in 1880, indexed under the surname “Courier”.

Good effort, guys. Participation trophies for everyone.