Why would an immigrant lie to the 1870 census taker?

Keiri

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Aug 11, 2015
so I have a bit of a mystery. My most likely civil war ancestor's last name was Cointin. They were from France and I have found them in St. Louis since the early 1850s and on those records it is spelled cointin. The name morphed later - one son kept cointin (my line) and the other took quanty. So in searching by even reading every single soldier list at the archives for Union, and then what records there are for confederate, I found nothing for those or sound alikes. I contacted St. Louis archives for exemptions. No luck.

So then I looked again at my records. I know for a fact that I have the right family for them in the 1870 census. Ages, first names, location, it all checks out. But the LAST name doesn't. The name as clearly as I can tell, comparing with other handwriting from the census taker, is written as Grenier. (Granary, barn, or attic in French). I mean, it doesn't even sound like it. I don't think he gave him his profession by accident because he was a farmer. And he had been in the us for 20 years and probably knew a little English by then.

So let's assume the census taker heard right. Why would he have given him the wrong name purposely? Would there be a reason he wouldn't want them to know? Would it matter if he served for the confederacy? Any thoughts? Conjecture is fine
 
I would not assume anyone deliberately lied. The enumerators got their information from whoever was around when they came by, which might be a a kid, or a neighbor, or someone who thought they knew the information but didn't. They may have been lying but, in the absence of any other known reason to suspect they were, I'd flag it as garbled/misreported information.
 
I'm assuming first off it's an error. But I wanted to consider other theories because the error theory hasn't helped thus far.
 
I would not assume anyone deliberately lied. The enumerators got their information from whoever was around when they came by, which might be a a kid, or a neighbor, or someone who thought they knew the information but didn't. They may have been lying but, in the absence of any other known reason to suspect they were, I'd flag it as garbled/misreported information.
Bingo. My best guess is the census taker got information from a secondary (and mistaken) source and went with it and it was never followed up on.
 
What seems odd to me about that is that the dates/ages and first names were all correct. Also, his wife is the *only* one marked "Cannot read." Don't think the neighbors or people around them would know that if they couldn't even get the name close to right. Also, the personal estate is valued at 25o. These numbers are different for everyone else on the block so I don't think he is making it up on the fly. So I'm still thinking either A) The mistake came from a communication error or transcription OR B) someone lied. I really don't think it was a third party who could know that kind of information.

I have seen it before on my other line where suddenly a last name completely changed. When trying to find out why, I discovered from family sources that the father snuck on a ship and didn't get here legally, so he hid under a false name. After about 20 years they went back to the "right" name. So It's not out of the question they would be hiding from something.
 
Yeah. I'm betting on that. Just wanted to consider alternatives that might give me clues about where to look for records.
 
Where was this person living? If in Missouri, he should have registered for the draft in 1863 if within the age brackets and not already serving in the military. You can look to see if he registered on Ancestry, possibly at your local library if you're not a subscriber. Why do you think he served? In the Union Army not anywhere near all the men eligibile for the draft were required to serve or did serve. The need of the local Draft board to conscript soldiers varied greatly and depended on how many in their quota had volunteered.

Re a name change, you don't know if there was one for all the very valid reasons stated above. Can you find them in the 1880 census to see if that is still Cointin? I do think the name Cointin is one which is very difficult for English speakers not educated in French to pronounce, and it would not surprise me if they did change the name. It is lawful to change your name as long as the intent is not to defraud. Many men served in the Civil War under aliases for a variety of reasons, sometimes just because they didn't like their birth names or wanted to Anglicize a foreign name that no one got right. Was there perhaps a Grenier in the family, someone's maiden name (BTW, also difficult to pronounce correctly or spell, but not as hard as Cointin).
 
I took a quick look at the Civil War Draft Registration Records searching for Cointin lived in MO on Ancestry and found
John Contins age 26 born in MO unmarried farmer living in Elkhorn MO One of the good things about Ancestry is that it searches for close misspellings and alternate spellings.
 
Hello,

Of course you know all of this.

I believe its a bad translation by the census taker. French words sound nothing like they are spelled - Champs Elysees = shahn zay-lee-zay, lol!

Any ideal who the 60 year old woman was living with the family in 1870? Seeing that a good bit of the details are wrong, did she talk to the census taker? Funny that the parents didn't age since 1860.

I came up with - Guinen (Cointin) > a bit closer if one had a french ascent, lol!

In the end, I believe it was a bad day for the census taker or he was being careless, he had 2 1/2 pages where everyone was born Missouri (including this family), possible, but doubtful (many Germans in St Ferdinand).
 
I encountered a similar situation with an 1870 Arkansas census while researching my 3rd Great Grandfather. Initially I chalked it up to a transcription error as the family information spanned two pages.

Upon further research I found that he was sued after the war for a note he cosigned for a Methodist preacher. Additionally, it was rumored, that he put up his own property as collateral for a train car of supplies prior to relocating from South Carolina to Arkansas, knowing that he was going to lose his land anyway.

Was he hiding from creditors? Did he intend on shedding his Confederate past with a new identity? Was it his way of sticking it to the Yanks by lieing on the census?

I may never uncover the truth as to the discrepancy with the 1870 census. Regardless, the hours of conjecture have proven entertaining.
 
I took a quick look at the Civil War Draft Registration Records searching for Cointin lived in MO on Ancestry and found
John Contins age 26 born in MO unmarried farmer living in Elkhorn MO One of the good things about Ancestry is that it searches for close misspellings and alternate spellings.

That is not him. Thanks for looking. Believe me though, I've paged through it all.
 
Where was this person living? If in Missouri, he should have registered for the draft in 1863 if within the age brackets and not already serving in the military. You can look to see if he registered on Ancestry, possibly at your local library if you're not a subscriber. Why do you think he served? In the Union Army not anywhere near all the men eligibile for the draft were required to serve or did serve. The need of the local Draft board to conscript soldiers varied greatly and depended on how many in their quota had volunteered.

Re a name change, you don't know if there was one for all the very valid reasons stated above. Can you find them in the 1880 census to see if that is still Cointin? I do think the name Cointin is one which is very difficult for English speakers not educated in French to pronounce, and it would not surprise me if they did change the name. It is lawful to change your name as long as the intent is not to defraud. Many men served in the Civil War under aliases for a variety of reasons, sometimes just because they didn't like their birth names or wanted to Anglicize a foreign name that no one got right. Was there perhaps a Grenier in the family, someone's maiden name (BTW, also difficult to pronounce correctly or spell, but not as hard as Cointin).

That's the problem, he did not register. I am a subscriber to that and a bunch of others, genealogy is my life for the last 20 years. Hehe. Yes, in 1880 they are still Cointin. Cointin is actually said "kwan-tohn" so it's possible they got it wrong. The mother's maiden name was Voirin (vwo-roh). Anyway he is not in the listing of pensioners on the rolls in St Louis CO 1883. But he's not listed in the draft which is the most curious thing. I was hoping the Grenier name was an alias and perhaps he signed up for the draft under that name, but no such luck.
 
Hello,

Of course you know all of this.

I believe its a bad translation by the census taker. French words sound nothing like they are spelled - Champs Elysees = shahn zay-lee-zay, lol!

Any ideal who the 60 year old woman was living with the family in 1870? Seeing that a good bit of the details are wrong, did she talk to the census taker? Funny that the parents didn't age since 1860.

I came up with - Guinen (Cointin) > a bit closer if one had a french ascent, lol!

In the end, I believe it was a bad day for the census taker or he was being careless, he had 2 1/2 pages where everyone was born Missouri (including this family), possible, but doubtful (many Germans in St Ferdinand).

That's Catherine's mother living with them. Her name was Marie Rose Voirin, so the W. Rose as a name somewhat makes sense. I'm not surprised too much about aging - people so rarely knew their actually ages and birthdays lol.. I like the idea of Guinen. I'm going to look again at St Ferdinand and see if there's anyone with anything close to that. I've come to just searching for Charles and Joseph and paging through thousands of names.
 
Interesting. How old was your elusive CW man in 1861? I should add I have a 2nd great grandfather Robert Burrows b 1828 in Lancashire England, who came to the US in 1853. He moved around for a while as a farm laborer before he homesteaded himself. But I cannot find that he registered for the draft in any state and am sure he didn't serve. So that kind of thing did happen.

If the family is Cointin in 1880, I would think that gives more weight to the idea that the 1870 census was either another person (very possible, even if ages match, I'be seen that happen) or a mistake. You say he was in St Louis. What do the City Directories say about his presence and his address?
 
He was 36 in 1861. I'm getting confirmation on the city directories before I post definitively.
 
Thinking about your ancestor has caused me to try to look into the Civil War Draft further -- this is an area in which I'be had trouble finding answers before. What I've discovered so far is that your ancestor would have been 38 years or close to that on July 1, 1863 and if married he would have been categorized in the Draft Enrollment as Class II (married men 36 to 45 on July 1, 1863). I then tried to find out (1) did Missouri draft ANY Union soldiers under this law? And (2) did Missouri or any other Union state ever draft anyone in Class II? Presumably the point of the two classes was to prioritize who would be drafted first, aND that wold men from Class I. I couldn't find the answer to either question.

Although divided in loyalty and source of a number of Confederate regiments, Missouri was officially a Union state, so I assume Confederates could not draft Missourians. I didn't find confirmation of that, but I don't see how they could have legally enforced a draft in that state. This isn't to say that bushwhackers and Confederate sympathizers in the person's locality couldn't threaten or intimidate him into joining the CSA, I'm sure that happened. St Louis during the War was a very important location of operations fir the Union and the entire city was under pretty tight military law. This possibly minimized Confederate pressure on individuals to join a Confederate regiment.

Finally re my own 2nd great grandfather and possibly your man, I learned that immigrants were not required to register for the draft unless they had applied for citizenship. I don't know when my ancestor applied for citizenship, censuses much later show him as Naturalized. but I can't find any record of it in the 3 states in which I know he lived. So if my ancestor didn't apply for citizenship until after the War, he wouldn't have had to register and would not have been subject to the draft.

Does this logic fit your ancestor too?

Your ancestor was also on the old side for a Civil War soldier in the ranks. The average age of a Civil War soldier (I assume Union) was 22 by some reports. Men who were older were allowed to volunteer, but the two instances of older soldiers I have in my family were special cases. My 2nd great grandfather Chase in Kansas was an abolitionist and so very politically motivated to join at the first opportunity in 1861 though he was 35 and married with 5 children. He was put in the Cavalry, which was less arduous duty than Infantry, and assigned to work as a recruiter. My 2nd great grandfather Montgomery was 42 in KY in 1863 and he served as a wagoner in the KY Cav, but he was a blacksmith by profession and this duty fit with his skills.

In trying to get more information about how the draft actually worked, I have not been able to learn much from the National Archives or its staff. I studies 130 Civil War Union soldiers, getting their service, medical and pension records and identifying their families and background. I had asked the Archives how I could tell if a man was drafted or volunteered. They said not from those records, just from their local draft board records. However, what I just read Googling CW draft topics says a drafter was not entitled to receive the enlistment bounty. If that is the test, I don't think I saw a single service record without a bounty credited at enlistment. I'm just saying (1) that the Union primarily filled its ranks with volunteers and (2) that's it's really hard to find detailed and trustworthy information about the operation and effects of the Civil War Union Draft.

Hope this helps.
 
I see what you are saying about the alien question, but in reviewing the provost marshal records it seems they arrested aliens who didn't apply for citizenship or sign up for the draft. They were allowed out of prison once they told the provost they'd do one or the other. Suzanne, you really have answered so many questions I've had but didn't know where to begin.

Because of the question you asked last night, I was looking at the directories - the only one i know of online (even counting Ancestry which I have a full subscription to): https://books.google.com/books?id=A7wUAAAAYAAJ&dq=st louis directory&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false is for 1893 (he died in Florissant in 1905)
I learned that for some reason unknown to me they didn't appear in the directory under either Grenier or Cointin or anything of the like or phonetics. So I decided to use cluster genealogy and started to investigate neighbors on the census (yes I'm aware they might not be exact neighbors but its better than nothing) to see if I could find THEM in the directory.

Interestingly, they list the names with R or P for real or private property owned. Then I obsessively compared the census record with that directory as well as these plat maps: http://digital.shsmo.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/plat (there are three for st louis county townships). By the time my eyes gave out, I could not locate anybody who I found owned real property from the directory AND who were on the same page or one after (it was the first page of the census they are on) on those teeny tiny names. By studying my butt off between those and modern maps, I managed to narrow it down to township 47 North, range 6 East (which is on two pages in all three of those maps - one for Florissant proper and one for the area of St. Ferdinand). Then I tried the BLM records for landowners I could identify from the directory in that area, and was surprised at how few there were. http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/search/ There were like, 3-4 for the whole area. I guess they were the original purchasers of the whole area, not individual ones. *sigh*

I don't believe they lived in Florissant proper because they were farmers and the land was too small. Why I point this out is because I had a hunch they lived in Blackjack (someone in the family was buried in that cemetery), which is a subset of St. Ferdinand. The rest were in the cemetery in Florissant proper. But no luck. So you can see I'm insane at this point.

All that insanity aside, your point makes sense because I cannot seem to find any other explanation. But I am planning a trip to St Louis County Archives at some point in the future, so if you want me to check it for your ancestor to see if there was an exemption filed for them, I'd be happy to. Let me know the info.
 
I spent the day paging through the Class II registrations in St Louis county. My eyes hurt. But no luck.

I'm curious to know if they made note of men who were not qualified, i.e. had an exemption certificate or were aliens. I wish I had THOSE records.

EDIT: After searching I have discovered the national archives holds such records under Group 110 (civil war) records of the provost marshal general's bureau. They are predominantly exemption documents and lists. So I'm going to do some exploring online and find out more.
 
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