When Normally Reliable Research Tools Go Horribly Wrong!

There are a few tools that some people researching genealogy consider as "go to" when they are doing research on a relative.  One of these tools are census records.  About eight times out of ten, everything is fine...but you have to keep your eyes open in case you happen to come across something like this, that I found last night while researching my Stricklett line.

The person I was researching was Howard Frankford Campbell, the eldest son of Bert C Campbell and Hannah Catherine "Kate" Stricklett.

Name:	Howard Camphell
Age in 1910:	3
Birth Year:	abt 1907
Birthplace:	Nebraska
Home in 1910:	Cuming, Washington, Nebraska
Race:	White
Gender:	Male
Relation to Head of House:	Son
Marital Status:	Single
Father's Name:	Louie Grimm
Father's Birthplace:	Nebraska
Mother's Birthplace:	Nebraska
Neighbors:	View others on page
Household Members:	Name Age Louie Grimm 34 Bert Camphell 30 [39]  Catherine Camphell 23 Howard Camphell 3 John M Camphell 2 [1 9/12]  Ethel Ballard 17

I have bolded two parts in the above sample:Relation to head of house (son), and Father's Name (Louie Grimm).  If you go back into the 1910 records and break it down, you can see that the actual census form had things correct, and the transcription of the record was faulty.  This is my transcription of what is actually on the 1910 Census for this family:

Louis Grimm - Head- Farmer, General Farm
Bert Campbell - Farmhand
Catherine Campbell - Housekeeper
Howard and John M. Campbell - Sons of Farmhand
Ethel Ballard - Servant.

Howard and John Campbell are the sons of the farmhand for Louis Grimm, Bert Campbell.  They are NOT the sons of Louis Grimm.

This isn't the only discrepancy that I've come across.  For my grandmother on my mother's side, she was listed with her grandfather as her father.  When I was looking through the recently released 1940 census records for my family and neighbors, they had one of the sons of the family next door, who's name is Dorse, listed as a girl named Doris.

So I guess what I am trying to say is keep your eyes open, even on sites that people feel are "go to", because nothing is perfect.  Always check the census form itself, because most mistakes are simple errors of transcription.  Just correct it on your tree, try to let other people doing the same thing know what you learned, and move on.

Which is exactly what I'm doing ;-)