Census Records

The next resource that we will look at is the United States Census. The first federal census taken in the U.S. was in 1790 and for the first 6 decenniel censuses, the only names recorded were those of heads of each household. All other household members were indicated by a tally mark in the appropriate age range and gender. In 1950 they started to record every member of the household, though relationship to the head of the household was not indicated until 1880. The 1890 census is not available as it was destroyed by fire and only fragments remain. The most recent census availble to us is 1930, but in 2010, the 1940 information will be released. We can access the census images on microfilm at the University of Maine Fogler Library or on the Internet at Ancestry.com. If you don't have a subscription to Ancestry.com you can use it at the Bangor Public Library. BPL provides card holders with remote access to HeritageQuest which includes many of the census records, but not all years.
Since I am interested in finding the names of the parents of my Davis Street neighbors, I went first to the 1930 census.

I wasn't able to find Alcide Burke, but I found Marion Broderick living with her mother, Jennie on Stillwater Ave in the home of her Aunt, Nora Bloodsworth. When I looked at the other people living nearby, I found the family of Louis and Beatrice Bourque living next door. They had 9 children, one of whom was Alcide P. One of the sisters of Alcide was named Violet and I remember that Burkie had a sister, Violet, who I believe roomed with the Burr's at one time. So this seems like the right guy, and now we know that he was probably French-Canadian and his name was originally Bourque. We can verify that information later with another source.

This seems like a good place to interject a word of caution about census records. There is lots of incorrect information in the census, so don't believe everything you read, and be creative when searching for information. Think about it - A census taker who may or may not have cared
about getting accurate information, spoke to one member of the family, who may not have known exact ages, middle names, place of birth, etc. and recorded what he or she heard in a sometimes illegible handwriting. In many cases the images we see of the census have been hand copied from the original. If you are using a digital index, another person has interpreted what the original
or copy of the original says and has created this index. That leaves lots of room for mistakes. I was looking for my own grandparents, Robert and Norma Huyett, in the 1930 census. I knew they were probably in Hagerstown Md. but couldn't find them. Since Norma is a somewhat unusual name, I tried looking for all Normas in Hagerstown. I found Norma Hugetty. When I looked at the image, I could see that it was indeed the right family, but the y had been interpreted the y as a g and the loop from a name below had been seen as a y at the end of the name. I wouldn't have found them if I hadn't done some creative searching.

I next looked at Ray and Dot Spinney. I found Raymond H. Spinney, age 18, living in Bradley, with his mother Bessie and his step-father Charles H. Burruley and brothers George Spinney and Howard Spinney. Also living in the house is the mother-in-law of Charles Burruley, Abbie M. Reed. This could mean that she is Raymond's grandmother and Reed may be his mother's maiden name. More investigation would prove or disprove this bit. I wasn't able to find Delores Bamford in this census.

I did find Charles W. and Florence Lowell in the 1930 census, living on Stillwater Ave. with son Charles, Jr., age 4. Tick and Florence had a granddaughter that was a year or two older than me and I once asked Tick to be my grandfather, but I was still surprised to find that my mother was only 3 years older than Charles, Jr.

Other Lowells in the 1930 Census include Harry and Mabel living at 28 Davis St. and Ava M. living with her daughter and son-in-law Mary and Daniel Lambert at 32 Davis. Seems like a good chance that they are at least some relation to Charles but a look at the 1920 or 1910 census will probably give us more information.

Woodrow Burr was living on South Main Street in 1930, at age 17, living with his parents Fred and Elvester Burr. Dorothy Bailey, age 15, and sisters Janet, Virginia, and Phyllis, were living on the County Road in Milford with mother, Vina, and grandmother, Grace Sleeper.

We're going to leave the census for now and work with the information we have found to fill in some information on our charts.