ThruLines can provide valuable hints, but these “hints” must be proven!

This morning, I was working on one of my more unusual surnames: Coppenbarger. My 3x great grandfather, Peter Coppenbarger (1817-1847), had a brother, George Coppenbarger (1804-1853). I only had 2 children listed for George: Elizabeth (b 1830) and Hugh (b 1834). But this ThruLine match was a descendant of a David Coppenbarger (b 1843). The match did not show David’s father as George, but ThruLines was suggesting this based on both FindaGrave and 61 member trees which listed David as a son of George. To try to verify this relationship, my first stop was the 1850 census on Ancestry.com.

1850 Census – Ancestry.com

The 1850 census shows Geo[rge] and his wife, Nancy, enumerated at the bottom of the page in Township 19 N R 1 E in DeWitt County, Illinois. This is image 1 of 8, so we need to lick to image 2 of 8 where we see this:

We see two children in this household: Levina, age 4, and Rufus, age 1. I already knew George & Nancy had two children: Elizabeth and Rufus. Elizabeth, now about 20 years old, could easily be married and out of the household. But what about Rufus who would be 16? And, did this couple really have a gap from 16-year-old Rufus to 4-year-old Levina?

On closer inspection, I noticed that George & his wife are in dwelling #181. But, the next page – the two children Levina and Rufus – are apparently in dwelling #196. As you can see, the surname of these children is not given. You might also note that the first image is page #27 (handwritten) where the second image is page #30 (handwritten). It appears Ancestry has skipped two pages!

The “scary” part is how easy it would have been to add Levina and Rufus as children of George and Nancy Coppenbarger and to MISS their real children!

1850 Census – FamilySearch

My next thought was to look for the 1850 census for George and his family on FamilySearch.

Here’s the same census image of Geo[rge] and Nancy Coppenbarger at the bottom of the page in dwelling 181. This image is image #27 of 103. And here’s the next image:

As you can see, this is one of the two missing images from Ancestry.com – the one we need! It is labeled with #28 (handwritten). And, the next household is #182, which is what we would expect. The household includes both Elizabeth (a little younger than the expected 20 years old) and Rufus. It also includes Mary, Isaac, David, and Nancy. (We also see Elisha Butler is George’s nephew.)

Not only have we found these additional children, but we specifically found the David we were looking for to help us potentially prove the ThruLine theory!

Add a Comment AND Report the Problem

When finding an error like this, we should do two more things: add a comment & report the problem.

To add a comment, click on the 2nd icon on the right-hand side (which looks like an arrow & a line & is currently highlighted green). You can then share a comment with others who look at this page.

To report the problem, click on the 3rd icon on the right-hand side (the “tools” icon which looks like a wrench & hammer & is currently highlighted green.) It will bring up the options shown above with the last one being “report problem.” With this tool, you can let Ancestry know they are missing images.

Did Ancestry.com Have the Image?

I also decided to see if Ancestry.com had posted the images of the children of George & Nancy in 1850. And, yes, they did. The two pages which were missing were found with other enumerations from Township 19 N R 1 E in DeWitt County, Illinois. They are image #1 & #2 of 17 images. Their handwritten page numbers, as mentioned earlier, are #28 & #29. The next page, image #3, is handwritten page #62.