A JOKER IN THE FAMILY TREE?

Randy Seaver’s post about the databases at the LDS Family
Search Record Search site prompted me to make a return trip
over there. I ran searches on the names of a few relatives and
came up with images from the 1900 census for Asa Ellingwood,
Frank Barker, Amos Hastings Barker and John Phelps West and
their families.


I also came up with two errors, one correctable, the other not.


The first one is the correctable one. I originally searched for my
great grandfather Philip Jonathan West and when I found the
index entry for him it listed his father as a “Jonathan D. West”.
Looking at the image of the census page I can understand how
that “P” could be mistaken for a “D”. So I clicked on the Feedback
tab and sent an email to the FamilySearch Lab to point at the
mistake and explain how I knew it should read “Jonathan P.
West”. I also thanked them for making it possible for me to even
see that image!


The other error…well, this is something that can’t be fixed and
it certainly isn’t the fault of Family Search. I think it instead
might be my ancestor Asa Freeman(or Freeland) Ellingwood
playing some some sort of prank.


You see, on the 1900 Census he gives his father’s birthplace as
England. Since it’s pretty well documented that John Ellingwood
Jr. was born in Maine I can only guess as to how or why “England”
would be entered.Perhaps Asa was tired of answering questions
and made that answer up to see if the census taker would accept
it?


At any rate, it’s there on the census to confound his descendants
and creat a genealogy mystery!