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In honor of Veterans Day, I decided to dig into my grandfather's military history. He never spoke of being in the service, and there is no record of him.
In the 1940 census my grandfather (Elmer) is not listed with the family, but a daughter (Orma) is listed. This is the only record of "Orma," she was the same age my grandfather would have been that year, and I have never heard this name. In looking at the census record, "Orma" and "daughter" are clearly written out.
Have any of you come across anything like this? How was census info collected in 1940? Is it probable this was some honest mistake/misunderstanding? Could false information have been given to avoid military service? I know they were a struggling Missouri farm family. My grandfather was the oldest and had one younger brother and two younger sisters. I imagine it would have been a real hardship for the family if he were gone. I'd sure appreciate any ideas or theories on what may have happened here.
How was census info collected in 1940? Is it probable this was some honest mistake/misunderstanding? Could false information have been given to avoid military service?
Did your grandfather have a sister named "Orma" or another similar-sounding name like "Norma"? Is it possible that she died young?
It's also possible that your grandfather could have been living in another household. Remember that the Great Depression was still ongoing in 1940. Many families simply could not afford to keep all of their children at home. Families were broken up and sometimes children (especially boys) were hired out as farm hands or lived in other households of relatives and friends for their room and board. I've seen that happen in my tree during the 1940 census.
It's also doubtful that your family was giving false info to avoid military service. The US didn't enter WWII until Dec 1941. The war was still far in the future when the census was taken. The U.S. was very isolationist in 1940 and nobody was worrying about the war in Europe or the draft.
Yes, it looks like your grandfather's name and gender was incorrectly recorded. Names are frequently recorded incorrectly on censuses - genders are recorded incorrectly less frequently but I've seen it happen a few times. So the chances that a name and gender were recorded incorrectly for the same person is certainly not impossible. Given the fact that the names do sound a bit similar, they were the same age, and your grandfather can't be found on the census, the most likely conclusion is that this is your grandfather. The census was taken by enumerators going door to door and asking someone in the household for all the details of everyone in the home. As you can imagine, there is a lot of room for error here. On the 1940 census, they indicated who provided the information with a small X and a circle around it next to the name of the individual - this can help you assess where the details went wrong, with the informant or with the enumerator.
I'm assuming the individual is 18+ in 1940 or you wouldn't be wondering if he might be dodging the draft so the issue is not that the person disappears after 1940 but that they never appeared on earlier records - therefore it's not an issue of a child dying young. However, as pointed out already, it's probably not possible your ancestor was reported as female to avoid the draft, since the draft hadn't even started yet - but also because the census is not taken for identification purposes. The census is taken purely for demographic purposes and the amount of sloppy errors regarding names and ages would make it a very unreliable source for tracking people down.
The other possibility I can think of is that your grandfather was living elsewhere and that "Orma" might have actually been a daughter-in-law... did your grandfather have any brothers who might have been married to someone with a name similar to "Orma"? Also, it's possible Orma was just a boarder who was incorrectly assumed by the enumerator to be a daughter. These are possibilities to keep in mind but if you can't find your grandfather in any other household, I think it's most likely he was wrongly recorded as "Orma". I've often suspected that enumerators sometimes wouldn't even ask about gender when it appeared it was obvious given the name. "Orma" sounds very feminine so it makes sense that the enumerator misheard "Elmer" as "Orma" and then just assumed the person was female based on the name.
Many times recording the information is left up to the untrained ear of the enumerator. It could have been an accent or possible hearing problem for the enumerator.
Oh, yes. In the 1930 census, my mother isn't listed, but a daughter named Emma is. We (all in the family) think it's because my grandfather answered the census takers questions and he couldn't remember my mother's name. So he gave out HIS mother's name.
Until my aunt was born five years later, when my mother was 8, everyone in the family called my mother "sister", and with Pappy it stuck.
I'm assuming the individual is 18+ in 1940 or you wouldn't be wondering if he might be dodging the draft so the issue is not that the person disappears after 1940 but that they never appeared on earlier records - therefore it's not an issue of a child dying young. However, as pointed out already, it's probably not possible your ancestor was reported as female to avoid the draft, since the draft hadn't even started yet - but also because the census is not taken for identification purposes. The census is taken purely for demographic purposes and the amount of sloppy errors regarding names and ages would make it a very unreliable source for tracking people down.
The other possibility I can think of is that your grandfather was living elsewhere and that "Orma" might have actually been a daughter-in-law... did your grandfather have any brothers who might have been married to someone with a name similar to "Orma"? Also, it's possible Orma was just a boarder who was incorrectly assumed by the enumerator to be a daughter. These are possibilities to keep in mind but if you can't find your grandfather in any other household, I think it's most likely he was wrongly recorded as "Orma". I've often suspected that enumerators sometimes wouldn't even ask about gender when it appeared it was obvious given the name. "Orma" sounds very feminine so it makes sense that the enumerator misheard "Elmer" as "Orma" and then just assumed the person was female based on the name.
I thought about this as a possibility. There is no "Orma" or similarly sounding name in the family. My grandfather would have been 20 at the time, and he doesn't show up in any other household that year. I can see where his name may have been misheard, then assumed to be female.
My grandfather was always evasive about certain times in his life. He would answer questions with jokes, and we would never get the real story. Military service was one of those areas, as was a possible stint working with the railroads.
It's also possible that your grandfather could have been living in another household. Remember that the Great Depression was still ongoing in 1940. Many families simply could not afford to keep all of their children at home. Families were broken up and sometimes children (especially boys) were hired out as farm hands or lived in other households of relatives and friends for their room and board. I've seen that happen in my tree during the 1940 census.
I hadn't thought about the effects of the depression. I'll keep that in mind as I look at other family records. I think this was probably a case of mishearing the name, then identifying him as a "her."
Keep in mind that some enumerators were more meticulous than others. It could be that the enumerator just was in a rush, and was careless in what he wrote.
Also, if the family was not home than the info could have been collected from a neighbor.
It was never required that enumerators get the correct spelling of names, they could write it the way it sounded to them.
All men of draft age were taken into the U.S. military in WWII, but I can think of some possibilities:
-Conscientious objector (i.e. draft dodger.)
-He had a medical condition that prevented him serving.
-He served in a secret project (i.e., Manhattan Project.) Many people that served in various secret military projects had to swear to never reveal the nature of their service. i saw a documentary about a group of these people who were only given permission to talk about it many decades later.
Last edited by daliowa; 11-12-2013 at 04:32 PM..
Reason: edit
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