Have You Got the Smarts?

Most of the census returns since 1850 have asked about schooling.   School related questions are on each census from that year until 1940 except for the 1880 census.  The 1950 census asks about schooling in the supplemental questions, so you have a one in five chance to learn about your ancestor’s school attendance.  The 1940 census can be especially revealing, since it tells us the last grade a person finished. 

When we look at the answers to these questions, we need to ask ourselves other questions to explain the answer on the census.  If your ancestor or their family members were not attending  school, there may have been many reasons beside not thinking education was important.

First, we need to consider the time period.  For most of us reading this, school was not an option until the 12^th grade.  For our ancestors, that was not the case.  This Wikipedia article tells us that in 1940 only 25% of the population completed the 12^th grade.  For our ancestors in the 19^th century, schooling only happened in months children were not needed on their family’s farm.  Survival came before education. 

No School to Be Found

There are also situations where children were living in a remote location and could not attend school.  Maybe the family could not afford to send the children to boarding school, or the children were needed to help at home.  The children may have also been home schooled.  If asked today if those children attended school the answer would be yes, but was that the attitude in earlier years.   An example I give when doing presentations about the census is from the Social Statistics Schedule for central Texas in 1870.  At the time there were only 2 schools in the entire county.  Knowing that this county had a heavy influence of former Germans, I would bet that most children in the county were educated at home, especially since most of them could read and write.

Building on the Future

Once you have an idea why they may not have attended school, next ask what impact it had on their lives or their family’s lives.  I have found that often when a family’s parents could not read or write, their children were usually in school.  If they weren’t attending school and they could read and write, how did they learn?  They had to have acquired the skill somewhere.  Even if their parents were illiterate, they could have learned from a neighbor, from their church, or even a mother teaching a few local kids to be literate.

You can also look at how long they attended school.  If you see an 18- or 21-year-old attending school, it’s likely they were attending college somewhere.  Look in county histories for colleges that may have records of their attendance or possibly even yearbooks.  In the northeast, some college yearbooks started in the 1870s.  Some may even contain pictures!

If your schedule won’t allow for digging through old yearbooks, we are the solution!  We love finding and reading records.  Contact us today to get that research done!