Double Census Enumeration – William Taylor & Family

Bradley-Hingston Project

By Don Taylor

Certainly, I’ve looked for individuals in the various census records and have been unable to find them anywhere and I believed they were missed in the Census. Also, I’ve heard that occasionally individuals are counted twice and have seen where a young man left home and was enumerated in one place while he was also enumerated with his parents. But, until now, I had never encountered a case where a family was enumerated twice.

I was surprised to see the inconsistencies between the two census entries, something that reminds me that Census records are often incorrect.

William S. Taylor, Jr. his wife Marie, and his three children, Dorothy, John, and Madeline, were enumerated in both Cape May, NJ, and in Philadelphia, PA. The Pennsylvania enumeration is odd, as the family was initially identified as “head, wife, & children” and then stricken out and had “Boarder” added instead.

Differences in the two entries for the Taylor family in 1900 Censuses.

Comparison of two entries

Philadelphia, ED 159, Sheet 3A, Lines 29-34	Avalon, Cape May, Ed 107, Sheet 12A, Lines 1-7

Besides the family structure, it is the servant, Margarette Rabey. Her presence in both entries proves that this is the same family.

The New Jersey entry also shows, living with the family was a “Boarder” John W. Polk, aged 80. Maria’s maiden name was Polk, so it is likely John W. Polk is related to Maria, possibly her father.

So, from the 1900 Census, there is a three-year window when William was born, a one-year window when Maria was born. The 1910 Census indicated that Magdeline’s mother, Maria, was born in Arkansas, which lends a little more credence to the Cape May entries.

It will be fun to learn definitively when William and Maria were born.