A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about Barnet Bond. Barnet’s first wife was Lovina Miller. I didn’t know much about her family until I found a newspaper announcement about the reading of her father John Miller’s will in 1837. The announcement mentioned his widow’s name and the names of all of their children. As was often the case during that time period women were not mentioned in their own right. Their husbands were included. But that’s a good thing for genealogy research. All of John’s daughters’ names were listed along with their husband’s names. That’s how I found the announcement because I had been searching in newspapers for Barnet Bond and his name was there. It also listed John’s sons names, but not their wives. I did eventually find some of their wives names through other research.
According to the 1850 US Census, Lovina’s mother Elizabeth(Betsey) Hicks Miller was born in Rhode Island. Betsey was living with her son Sidney in 1850. I haven’t done any research in Rhode Island yet to see if I can trace her family.
While researching this part of my husband’s family I learned about Agricultural Census records. In addition to the population census records that we are all familiar with there also exist census records about land, livestock, produce, etc that farmers owned. I have found the 1850 Ag Census from Kingsbury, New York with Barnet Bond and Lovina’s brothers John Jr, Sidney, and Nelson Miller all on the same page. Categories listed on the Ag Census are Acres of Land (Improved and Unimproved), Cash Value of Farm, Value of Farm Implements and Machinery, Live Stock (Horses, Asses and Mules, Milch Cows[assume these are dairy cows], Working Oxen, Other Cattle, Sheep, Swine, Value of Live Stock), Produce (Bushels of Wheat, Bushels of Rye, Bushels of Indian Corn, Bushels of Oats, Pounds of Rice, Pounds of Tobacco, Ginned Cotton Bales of 400 Pounds Each, Pounds of Wool, Bushels of Peas and Beans, Bushels of Irish Potatoes, Bushels of Sweet Potatoes, Bushels of Barley, Bushels of Buckwheat, Value of Orchard Products in Dollars, Gallons of Wine, Value of Produce of Market Gardens, Pounds of Butter, Pounds of Cheese, Tons of Hay, Bushels of Clover Seeds, Bushels of Other Grass Seeds, Pounds of Hops, Hemp(Tons of Dew Rotted, Tons of Water Rotted), Pounds of Flax, Bushels of Flaxseed, Pounds of Silk Cocoons, Pounds of Maple Sugar, Hhds of 1000 Pounds of Sugar Cane [I don’t know what hhds means], Gallons of Molasses, Pounds of Beeswax and Honey, Value of Home-Made Manufactures), Value of Animals Slaughtered. Obviously not all of these categories applied to them. They weren’t growing rice, tobacco, and cotton in New York State. I also have the 1860 Ag Census for Ozro Bond after he had moved to Scriba, Oswego County, New York, and the 1860 and 1870 Ag Census records for John Jr, Sidney, and Nelson Miller still in Kingsbury, and Nelson in the 1880 Ag Census.
Here’s the link to the Miller family tree https://myfamgen.com/miller-family/