Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Ancestors In the 1900 Census?

I love when Randy Seaver has us looking through our records for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but my database is still offline, so it's a lot harder to do right now!

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) How many of your ancestors are in the 1900 United States census?  List them all, their locations, their ages, and their occupations.  Were any ancestors missed by the census enumerator?  (Note:  For folks who have census entries in other countries, substitute your country for the U.S. and the closest available census to 1900.)

(2) Tell us in a blog post of your own, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a comment to this post with a link to your post.

Here are mine.  I also worked backward in time.

• My grandmother Anna Gauntt is the only grandparent I have who was born before 1901.  In the 1900 census she was 7 years old, lived in Mount Laurel, Burlington County, New Jersey, and had no occupation.

• Great-grandfather Thomas Kirkland Gauntt was 30 years old, lived in Mount Laurel, Burlington County, New Jersey, and worked as a farm laborer.

• Great-grandmother Jane (Dunstan) Gauntt was 29 years old, lived in Mount Laurel, Burlington County, New Jersey, and had no occupation.

• Great-grandmother Laura May Armstrong was 18 years old, lived in Westhampton, Burlington County, New Jersey, andi is listed as a "helper" in the occupation column.

• Great-great-grandmother Amelia (Gibson) Gauntt was 68 years old, lived in Chester, Burlington County, New Jersey, and had no occupation.

• Great-great-grandmother Sarah Ann (Lippincott) Armstrong was 40 years old, lived in Westhampton, Burlington County, New Jersey, and for occupation had "boarder" listed.

So I have a grand total of six (!) ancestors I have found in the 1900 census.  I don't know of anyone who was missed by enumerators.  My list is short for several reasons:

• Jane (Dunstan) Gauntt's parents (and grandparents) died well before 1900.

• I have not yet identified my biological great-grandfather, who fathered a child with Laura May Armstrong.

• Amelia (Gibson) Gauntt was widowed before 1900.

• Sarah Ann (Lippincott) Armstrong was apparently divorced from Joel Armstrong before 1900, and he in all likelihood was still alive and was enumerated in the 1900 census, but I have not definitively identified him yet in the census.

• I don't actually know whether Sarah (Lippincott) Armstrong's parents were alive in 1900.  I don't have death dates for either of them.

• All of my ancestors on my mother's side of the family were still in the Russian Empire in 1900, and I have been unable to find a single one of them in the 1897 revision list.  The closest record to 1900 I have found for an ancestor on that side is for my great-great-grandfather Gershon Itzhak Nowicki; he appears in a 1904 or 1906 (I can't find it right now to check) voter list, living in Porozovo, Grodno Gubernia (now Porazava, Belarus).

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Where Were Your Ancestors in 1900?

For this week's challenge on Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver is having us kind of split the difference between 1865 and 1917, because now we're looking for where our ancestors were living in 1900.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music), is:

(1) Where were your ancestors in the year 1900?  Make a list with their ages and locations (with street addresses if you know them).

(2) Share your information in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or on Facebook or Google+.  Please leave a link to your post in a comment to this post.

Here's my list.  I'm still shy on specific addresses for a lot of my ancestors.  When I have them, I'm listing birth years of my ancestors in parentheses.

My 2nd-great-grandfather Joel Armstrong (1849) was living in Burlington County, New Jersey.  I have not been able to determine which Joel he is among the three or four of about the same age in the county.

My great-grandmother Laura May Armstrong (1882) and her mother, Sarah Deacon Lippincott (1860), were living with Sarah's uncle and aunt Amos and Rebecca Lippincott at 343 Broad Street, Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey.

My great-grandfather Cornelius Elmer Sellers (1874) was living in Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey with his mother, Catherine Fox Owen, and stepfather, George W. Moore.

My 2nd-great-grandmother Amelia (Gibson) Gauntt (1831) was living in Burlington County, New Jersey, almost definitely with one of her children.

My great-grandparents Thomas Kirkland Gauntt (1870) and Jane (Dunstan) Gauntt (1871) were living in Mount Laurel, Burlington County, New Jersey.  Living with them were their surviving chidlren Frederick Cleworth, my grandmother Anna (1893), Carrie Florence, and Mary Louise.

My 2nd-great-grandparents Simcha Dovid (unknown birth year) and Bela (unknown maiden name) Mekler (unknown birth year) might have been alive.  I know Simcha died by about 1904 and Bela by about 1924.  If they were alive, they were probably living in the area of Kamenets Litovsk, Russian Empire (now Kameniec, Belarus).  Living with them would have been their daughter Sora; they might have had additional children, but I don't know of any.

My 2nd-great-grandparents Gershon Itzhak Nowicki (about 1858) and Dora (Yelsky) Nowicki (about 1858) were probably in Porozowo, Russian Empire (now Porozovo, Belarus).  Chldren living with them would have included Zlate (Jennie here in the U.S.), Schmuel (Sam), Louis, Chaim, Harry, and Mirke.

My great-grandparents Moishe (Morris) Meckler (about 1882) and Mushe (Minnie) Zelda (Nowicki) Meckler (about 1880) might have been married already.  The only date I have seen for their marriage is October 3, 1900, but I have no European documents to substantiate that, so it could have been a year or two before or after (although after is less likely).  It's possible that their oldest child, Sarah, was already born and was living with them.  If they were not married yet, they probably would have each been living with their respective parents.

It's possible that my 3rd-great-grandfather Gersh Wolf Gorodetsky (unknown dates) was still alive in 1900, because I have not found any descendants named after him.  On the other hand, maybe his children didn't like him and that's why they didn't name anyone after him.

My 2nd-great-grandparents Isaac/Victor Gorodetsky (about 1866) and Esther Leah Schneiderman (between 1868–1874)) were living in Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russian Empire (now Chișinău, Moldova) with their children Etta, Joine (Joe, my great-grandfather; about 1892), Sure (Sarah), Dovid (David), and Chaim (Hyman).

My 2nd-great-grandparents Mendel Hertz (Morris) Brainin (about 1861) and Ruchel Dwojre (Rose Dorothy) (Jaffe) Brainin (about 1868) were living in the Russian Empire, possibly in or in the area of Kreuzburg (now Krustpils, Latvia).  Living with them were their children Nachman (Max), Chase Leah (Lena), my great-grandmother Sure Leibe (Sarah Libby), Dovid (David), Velvel (William), Pesche (Bessie), and Benjamin.  Benjamin had a twin sister, but she is said to have died about 1898.

There's also a possibility that my 3rd-great-grandfather Solomon Brainin (died before 1909) was alive.  The first child I know of and whom I am pretty sure was named for him was born in 1909.  If Solomon (not really his name, but I don't know what his Jewish name was) was alive, he would also probably have been living in the area of Kreuzburg.