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My 3rd Great-Grandfather Ezra Sawyer – I Found Him!

My 3rd great-grandfather, Ezra Sawyer, would have been 221 years old this year. He was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and lived most of his life in New Hampshire. He died and is buried in Woodstock, New Hampshire. You can see his grave here.

Looking at the U.S. Federal Census in GenealogyBank, I found him in the 1840 census, living in Woodstock.

Source: GenealogyBank, “United States Census, 1840,” database with images, GenealogyBank (https://genealogybank.com/#), Ezra Sawyer, Woodstock, Grafton, New Hampshire, United States. (Original index: United States Census, 1840, FamilySearch, 2014.)

There he is – but what do all of those numbers mean?

The 1790 to 1840 census only listed the name of the “Head of the Household,” which could have been a man or woman. The rest of the household were tabulated by their age group.

A handy tool for understanding these early population counts are the census work forms available here.

Using the 1830/1840 census work sheet I can see what these numbers mean.

Source: FamilySearch Wiki

For Ezra Sawyer’s family in the census we learn:

Males:

Females:

Looking at it, I don’t see that any of the other columns were checked.

That gives us:

Looking at Ezra’s family I see that three of his daughters had died before 1840.

In the 1850 census, Mary (Smith) Sawyer is living in Woodstock with her children Noah, Elbridge and Caroline.

I will need to keep digging to determine if it was Noah or Francis Sawyer that was enumerated in the 1840 census.

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