What became of Alexander?  Did he exist or didn’t he?  Let’s take a look.

If you have looked at the US Census before 1850, you might have thought that it did not tell you much.  Many of us rush over those early census documents, just using them to establish if our male ancestor lived in a certain county.  As is often the case in family history research, there is more to those documents, but you must slow down and read carefully to find those answers.

Build a chart like the one at the right of the page using all of those little hash marks.  Label the cells on the top row with the corresponding age groupings, 0-10, 11-15, and so forth.  Label all the way across, making one group for the males and one for the females.  Then put each hash mark as a mark in the corresponding cell.  So if there is a hash mark in the 11-15 male column, drop down below your heading and put an x or other symbol in the correct cell.  After you put in all of the hash marks, if you know, or think you know the children’s names, substitute the symbols for names.  On the bottom row, you can put the actual date range that the person would have been born.  That will help you determine a date of birth later.  Your chart might look something like the one at the left of the page.¹

If you do this for every census from 1790-1840 that your ancestor was alive, then you can start narrowing down the birth year.  In my case, James Seale was present on the census in his fathers household in 1810, 1820, and 1830.  The 1810 census give his birth as 1801-1810, the 1820 census as 1805-1810, and the 1820 census as 1801-1810.  By comparing these dates I get a birth date of 1805-1810.  Comparing different years will also help you eliminate any errors in the census.

Getting back to Alexander.  You will notice in the chart above, that I have Alexander’s name put in the White Male under 10 years column.  Alexander’s name wasn’t there, but there were 3 white males living in Joshua Seale’s household.² If you do the same chart for the 1820 census, there are only two white males in the age range to be Alexander.  Those two hash marks were for Daniel and James.  The hash mark I was counting as Alexander was gone by the 1820 census.³

We have another small clue, or maybe you could call it a wrench in the works!  You will notice from the last post that Martha and Alexander were reported to both have been born on January 23, Martha in 1803 and Alexander in 1804.  While this is humanly possible, I would think it very unlikely!

What is going on with Alexander?  Did he ever exist, or was he an invention of an overzealous genealogist?

Before I go any farther, let me first say that I do not have enough evidence to support what I am about to say.  It is my gut feeling based on the evidence I do have, and it is the best theory I have seen.

There are two possibilities.  Either Joshua and Ellender never had a child named Alexander, or Martha and Alexander were twins, and Alexander died before 1820.  I do not think that Alexander could have been born at another time, because young Ellender was born in 1805, and a child in 1803, 1804, and 1805 would have been very improbable.

For those of you who are thoroughly confused (don’t worry, it happens to me all of the time), let me recap.

1. There were 3 males under 10 listed on the 1810 census, and only two of the same age group on the1820 census
2. Martha and Alexander are reported to have been born on the same month and day
3. There is no other time while the Seales were living in North Carolina for Alexander to have been born

Because of these three things, I am guessing that there was an Alexander Seale, that he was Martha Seale’s twin brother, and that he died before 1820…until I find more evidence!

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