Why would an immigrant lie to the 1870 census taker?

I have found something that I think explains why my guy is not on any list. This is from the Daily Missouri Democrat, page 2, Saturday, November 28, 1863
Cointin, why I can't find Charles.png

If he was just "stricken off the list" he never would have been made to sign anything. :/
 
I'll bet the name thing is an error. One of my family names is Fuery, and its been spelled with a T, no e, 2 r's, etc.

My other thought is that your ancestors changed their name on purpose, to fit in more perhaps with the locals. My father's family name has been changed at least twice, including once by my dad, since no one wanted to hire a Pole after WWII. He simply dumped the -ski.
 
Here is a good directory of online sources of St. Louis City and County Directories:

http://mohistory.org/node/8453

Did you see the 1860 census entry for Charles Cointin in Florissant ini 1860 (wife Catherine, son Charles)? Ancestry transcribed the last name as Courtin, but the page says Cointin, with a faint dot over the first "i" -- even when the census taker gets it right, Ancestry botches it. Are these relatives? Is this the land you were lookin for? Undoubtedly you did find this, someone listed a correction for the name. Did you see John Contine age 35 b. France in a Catholic Seminary in Indiana in 1860? Ancestry has this man as John Contini, living in Vincennes, Knox Co. Indiana in 1860. Age 25, b in France.

There are so many possibilities for botching this name. And people were often left out of the census because in those days the census was not taken as of one date. If someone moved, they could have been counted once in either place, or they were omitted because the census taker visited neither place when the person was living in that place, or the person could have been counted twice, one in each place of residence, even if the two places were very close together. We often see this when people move in New York City, which occurred frequently because most residents were renters who moved annually.

I'm not sure of the exemption process. Were only men who had previously registered applying for exemptions or were men applying for exemptions before they were registered? In our mosts recent drafts (Viet Nam) exemptions were not claimed until the person was "called up" probably long after they "registered" at age 18. What I do see in the registrations are notations at the side of matters that would lead to rejection or and exemption. For example I recently saw one Missourian marked "formerly served as reb" meaning the man had been in the service in the Confederate Army or one of the Confederate-oriented state militias. I've also seen notations of physical disability.

Oh Great! I just saw your article answering my questions about eligibility. That's info I could find nowhere else, so thank you! It will help me in the future.
 
That business of making aliens apply for citizenship and then sign up for the draft was totally illegal and I wonder if it was ever enforced. It sounds like a threat made to an alien held on suspicion of collaboration with the Confederacy or spying, not like an activitiy the Provost Marshall's office routinely engaged in. According to one source, out of 2,100,000 Union soldiers, less that 50,000 men who served were drafted. I think Illinois took it as a point of pride that its actual draft figures are very small. It would be interesting to know by state how many were drafted, but I've never seen that.
 
Kieri, I don't know about you, but I've wondered if my great great grandfather from England maybe delayed filing for citizenship during the War because he didn't know what this country was going to turn into, not just because of the draft. Many people were absolutely destroyed by the War. Maybe not in St Louis Co, where your people were or Illinois an Iowa where he was, but certainly many in other parts of Missouri. And your ancestor was living under martial law. Probably not what either had envisioned when they came to the US.
 
Cointin, why I can't find Charles1.png


I think this might answer SOME of your questions. Its the only article I've seen of its like, though. I emailed the Missouri archives and asked them if they have or know of where these ledgers were kept. Well, provided they still exist *sigh*

Also, this item in the provost marshal papers in Saint Louis for 1864: "Transmittal of documents received by Major Adjutant General Mitchell from the British Consul to Capt. Willhastrtz; requesting the release of aliens arrested for not having papers"
 
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Thanks :smile: yes, I have found him in 1860, that is my name correction. I also have him in 1870 (as Grenier) 1880 as Quintin, 1900 as - and I kid you not - Co*Ti* - his passenger papers as Cuintin and Courtin, and his burial records - right lol.

Unfortunately the 1860 census doesn't give me an address, plat, or other way of locating them other than to know they were in the Florrisant part of St. Ferdinand.

Here is a good directory of online sources of St. Louis City and County Directories:

http://mohistory.org/node/8453

Did you see the 1860 census entry for Charles Cointin in Florissant ini 1860 (wife Catherine, son Charles)? Ancestry transcribed the last name as Courtin, but the page says Cointin, with a faint dot over the first "i" -- even when the census taker gets it right, Ancestry botches it. Are these relatives? Is this the land you were lookin for? Undoubtedly you did find this, someone listed a correction for the name. Did you see John Contine age 35 b. France in a Catholic Seminary in Indiana in 1860? Ancestry has this man as John Contini, living in Vincennes, Knox Co. Indiana in 1860. Age 25, b in France.
 
Kieri, I don't know about you, but I've wondered if my great great grandfather from England maybe delayed filing for citizenship during the War because he didn't know what this country was going to turn into, not just because of the draft. Many people were absolutely destroyed by the War. Maybe not in St Louis Co, where your people were or Illinois an Iowa where he was, but certainly many in other parts of Missouri. And your ancestor was living under martial law. Probably not what either had envisioned when they came to the US.

Probably so, but my understanding is that many aliens were told they could not own real property unless they applied for citizenship. As my ancestor Charles never OWNED his property, simply rented, I guess he never saw the need.
 
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.
My ancestors were from Switzerland. I have a land record with our last name butchered. After I looked at it awhile I realized it was a phonetic spelling by a non-German speaker. It may be the same with yours? Census forms. Yikes.
 
I don't think that's true about never being able to own property if you weren't a citizen, although perhaps that varied state by state, but what you couldn't do was homestead, at least under the Homestead Act adopted in 1863. Homestead files can sometimes turn up a copy of an ancestor's citizenship papers because of that requirement. I found a gorgeous copy of the judgment of naturalization for the family of a German immigrant that had a copper court seal on it in the homestead file. Homesteading is how many ordinary farmers did acquire land, so it was a significant impediment. However, I've researched several people who came here and purchased land before they were citizens, even land patents from the federal government.

Where was that menacing notice intimidating the immigrants? In an official Provost Marshal publication? That sounds like the worst kind of unjustified nationalistic discrimination, KKK like stuff, trying to incite public opprobrium and possibly violence against the named men. I'm surprised they got away with it. I'm sure that was not national policy, not in New York City, anyhow. They even have disabled people on there. What was going on in St. Louis? Was Missouri having trouble filling its Union quota because so many of its eligible men chose to fight for the Confederacy? The US had a reason for that policy that should have been respected, and that was fear of desertion and disloyalty of the troops who were citizens of another nation because they were not fighting for something they had a stake in.

You do know that your family is on findagrave.com? Starting with Charles and Catherine:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/f...st=26&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=46995162&df=all&\

Re where your ancestors lived, you've probably tried this, but when I can't find someone on a plat, I ask the local historical society and sometimes they have roughly drawn maps of the farms surrounding the nearest town with the access roads which were used to give visitors directions.

Charles never because a citizen? Unfortunately, I see that the 1900 census taker didn't ask, everyone else was b. in Missouri and they just missed it, because they were supposed to record an answer either way and they didn't fill in years in the US and year of arrival. I don't think you can tell much from Catharine's blank space under naturalization -- in those days, they naturalized the husband and his wife and children should have been named in the petition which usually doesn't survive and the whole family were then all citizens -- there would't have been a separate proceeding for Catharine, nor would she have been required to attend. When women couldn't vote (and for some time afterward) they had little concern about conferring citizenship on married women, and at one point there was even a law that if an Amerian woman who was a citizen married a foreigner who was not naturalized, she lost her American citizenship. So Catharine might not have known if she had been included by inference in something she didn't participate in.

These people rented the same land for 60 years? That's very unusual that someone owned farm land that long and didn't either sell it or use it themselves. Naturalization records are very elusive and not all of them are on Ancestry by any means. But perhaps your family made it clear that they never intended to become citizens.
 
Yes, I put them all up there on Findagrave. This is me: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/f...=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&MRid=46585198&df=all&

As for whether or not it was true about property, it wasn't (to my knowledge), but it was a common thing told to people. As for that notice, it was in the Daily Missouri Democrat, just a regular paper. I will ask the historical society about that, very interesting. It's possible they lived on the land as sharecroppers. Or maybe they did apply for citizenship, but finding it will be a nightmare with this name, you know? I also have fold3 and they have a good amount of naturalization documents on there and I've spent some time on it, but no luck.

Great ideas, thank you.
 
They wouldn't need to be sharecroppers, in fact I only think of sharecroppers being on the small farms carved out of the old plantations. Actually, people near the city of St Louis could grow fruit and vegetables to market in the City or sell wholesale. I don't really understand why, but there were a lot of farms for rent in the MidWest and North in the 19th C, with rent not dependent on the success of the crop. In some communities, sometimes about 50-50, about half of the working farms were owned and half rented. Were the rented farms owned by widows or older people who couldn't work the land themselves and this was a more economical arrangement, for them to live with children or board in town and collect rent than to live on the farm and run it with hired labor? Were they owned by grown children who had inherited them and rented them out rather than sell? Was it not deemed a good time to sell by the owner, so they rented for a while? Even during my lifetime, I had an aunt who had divorced while she and her husband owned a farm, she wound up with a couple of fields after the divorce, and she elected to work in the city while keeping the farmland and renting it to an adjoining farmer. I have no idea why, no one ever explained it to me.

I was in the map room of the New York Public library looking for a plat map of Stoddard Co MO and while I was there I thought I'd see if the library had anything for St. Louis Co. MO. I didn't have it pulled, but they had one plat book dated 1909 (that was the only one). Would that be a relevant date for you? I know Charles died in 1905. If so, I can look at it next time I'm in there. Unlike those awful images online, it would be the original and should be readable.
 
You are very kind. Unfortunately it wouldn't help, because in 1905 Charles and Catherine's son Frank built his own house on property he purchased, I've attached it here. That's how it looks today, of course, 110 years later. I went driving by it a few years back when I visited Missouri and let's just say the area is very sad. Half the houses on the block were burned down. People were all over even in the middle of the day, and junk cars (ones that don't seem to work, I mean) everywhere. Poverty has hit this area hard. Anyway so in 1909 all you'd see is Frank, his family and his mom living here. You are very resourceful, its fun talking to you. I wish you were in Wisconsin!
cointin, frank home 1920.png
 
You are very kind. Unfortunately it wouldn't help, because in 1905 Charles and Catherine's son Frank built his own house on property he purchased, I've attached it here. That's how it looks today, of course, 110 years later. I went driving by it a few years back when I visited Missouri and let's just say the area is very sad. Half the houses on the block were burned down. People were all over even in the middle of the day, and junk cars (ones that don't seem to work, I mean) everywhere. Poverty has hit this area hard. Anyway so in 1909 all you'd see is Frank, his family and his mom living here. You are very resourceful, its fun talking to you. I wish you were in Wisconsin!View attachment 108535


Thanks for the kind words. We can talk any time. If we could turn back time, I'd be in Wisconsin -- many, many years ago I attended the U of Wis Madison and got a BA in English Lit. I'm afraid I didn't see much of the state then, though. No car and so much work to do. When my friends and I went somewhere, it was to Chicago, where a roommate lived.

Sorry about the decline of your family property, it is depressing. A lot of my ancestor's homesteads are no longer in use as farms and have become just desert in Western KS (that one was a bad choice) or part of wildlife preserves in MO and KY. Too hilly for modern mechanized farming methods.
 
I live in Madison, on the west side. I'm originally from Long Island NY. But I've been around... My ancestor in Southern Illinois, his farm was turned into an interstate. Aside from that, all of the tenements in NYC where my ancestors lived were destroyed to make room for the trains or roads. I can't find a single ancestor of my own in the civil war. All my research is on my guy's family. I'm at a complete brick wall with my own new yorkers as I can't find a first name for the one possible line that could have participated. For a nerd obsessed with genealogy and the civil war, it's a little depressing. I'm about to start researching Italian wars to see if they took part in those...
 
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