In browsing the blogs this evening, I ran across an interesting article called “Filling in That 10-Year Gap,” by Allison Aston at The ProGenealogists 
Blog. Allison writes about a family whose children were in an orphanage for a period of time following the death of their mother. So when located in the 1900 census, the children were listed as being in the orphanage, and Allison hadn’t yet found what their parents names were. I’ll let you get the rest of that story at The ProGenealogists Blog.
Ten years is a long time. Families may move – several times in fact! Family members are born. Family members get married, and yes, family members die. And the Federal census seldom tells the entire story. Genealogists want to know more. We want to know the details of the intervening 10 years. To get those details we must move to other sources – vital records – probates – land records – tax records and state census records, et al.
Did I write “tax records and state census records?” I sure did. Thirty-seven states took Colonial, Territorial, and State Censuses. All of them had local, state, and federal taxes collected from their citizens. These records contain a wealth of information that help to fill in the details of that 10-Year gap. Two of the most popular genealogy guidebooks currently available are William Dollarhide’s Census Substitutes and State Census Records, Volumes 1 & 2 – Eastern and Western States. In these volumes, Bill details the state censuses as well as hundred of substitutes, which include tax records. Click here to learn more about these volumes.
