Madness Monday - William Ballenger -Census Mis-index

Last week I wrote about starting to look for other Ballenger families in Mahaska County, Iowa in the Iowa State Census Collection during the 1850’s. One of the names that had appeared on an 1854 special census was that of Willard Ballenger. You can see by looking at the image below that Willard is really William. I let Ancestry know and they say they have included the alternate (correct) spelling.

So, the count for this household is as follows:

line 7 William Ballenger 2 males, 2 females, 0 colored male, 0 colored female, 1 voter, 1 militia, 0 aliens, 4 Total

The William Ballenger household would have been composed of William, Lucinda (wife), John H (son), and Nancy (daughter).

This fills in another year on the family’s timeline! Of course it also raises some additional questions such as are there any voter or militia records available for the area? Who are the Samuel and JF Ballenger families? How are they associated with William? Where is their property located in relation to William’s?

 

Next week we’ll look at some more Mahaska County, Iowa records and see what we can glean from them. Stay tuned…

Note: I did check the preceding pages for additional Ballengers and there were none. What you see in the image is the last two pages for the Mahaska County listing.

Source:
1854 Iowa State Census, Mahaska County, Iowa, Adams Township, no page number, line 7. William Ballenger; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed April 2010), citing microfilm of Iowa State special censuses 1854 obtained from the State Historical Society of Iowa via Heritage Quest.
© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum