Mortality Schedules

I would like to talk about the importance of using United States Census Mortality Schedules.  While researching Charles Burkett I found out about this very useful tool.

I had done a census search for the entire family and could not find when Charles' first wife, Elizabeth, passed away.  She was in the 1850 census but in 1860 Charles is married to Margaret.  I assumed that Elizabeth had passed away between 1850 and 1860 but had no proof.  When I searched the Mortality Schedules on Ancestry for Elizabeth there was no results.  I then assumed that she had died from 1850-59.

I then went up to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, UT and I decided to verify all of the census research that I had done with the census index books.  They have an 1860 mortality schedule for Barry County, Missouri.  When I went and checked the index for Elizabeth I found her.  Not only did I find Elizabeth I found out that she died of "female complaints" (Lisa Lamp, Barry County, Missouri Mortality Schedules for 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880 and Slave Schedules for 1840, 1850, 1860: Indexed (N.p.: n.p., 1994), 2) and that there was another possible son for Charles and Elizabeth.  This son's name was Jessefat, who died a few months after birth.

The moral of the story is that when you use Ancestry for census research they do not have all of the extra schedules.  When searching through the schedules you need to use multiple websites and look through the printed indexes in order to find information that will not come up on any one website.