Saturday Night Challenge - Sunday Morning

As always, I get my Saturday Night Challenge from Randy on Sunday Morning!!! [My Daddy always told me I'd be late for my own funeral one day!]

The challenge this week:
This week is a "Genealogy Scavenger Hunt." Remember doing a scavenger hunt as a kid? Going door-to-door looking for specific items on a list and the first one back with everything got the prize? Sometimes the neighbors didn't speak to my folks for a week afterwards!

I digress... for this Genealogy Scavenger Hunt, there are no prizes, just the reward you get for finding something useful or interesting (or not...):

1) Is there someone on your list of 16-great-great-grandparents that you don't have a census record for, and for which one should be available? If you have all of your great-great-grands (or they are not on the census records), what about your great-grands, your grands, or your parents? What about siblings of your great-grands? What about your spouse's family lines? Go find at least one!

2) Tell us about it in your blog, comments to this post, or comments in Facebook. While you're at it, give us a source citation for your census finding too (you do make source citations, don't you?).

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And so, I go a searching for Samuel Parkin, my great-great-grandfather. [One of those 16-great-great's.] Samuel is my paternal grandfather's maternal grandfather. [Uh.... does that makes sense???]

Samuel was born 21 April 1778 in Virginia. And he died 19 January 1854. To date, the only Census record I have been able to uncover for him is the 1850 record. Even though he spent the majority of his life in Greenbrier County.

Samuel has been known to have had a variety of spellings for his last name: Perkin, Perkins, Parkin, Parkins. All of these leave me with no census records.

I have searched over the vast records of Ancestry.com, Footnote.com, and HeritageQuestOnline.com. To no avail.

I've tried playing wildcards, in hopes that some indexer just misspelled the last name. To no avail.

I've tried using abbreviations for his given name: Sam, Sam'l, Saml, Sammy, etc.... Again, to no avail.

I tried contacting other researchers to see if they had located Samuel in any other Census records. Again, no one else seems to have had any more luck than I.

Until this challenge. [This really taught me to go back periodically from now on and re-research my sources!!!]

While I still have not located Samuel on the 1840 Census, I have uncovered him, thanks to this challenge, on the 1830! I kept looking, and low and behold, I also have uncovered the 1820 Census!

While he should have been in the same location in 1810, I have not located him there as of yet, but I feel certain that with continued effort, I will uncover the remainder of his census records!

In 1820 Samuel is found in Greenbrier County, Virginia.
Roll: M33_132/ Page 187/ Image 163
Lewisburg, Greenbrier, Virginia
Samuel Perkins FREE WHITE MALES <10 = 2
26 - 45 = 1
FREE WHITE FEMALES <10 = 2
26 - 45 = 1
# of Persons in Agriculture = 3
All other persons not taxes = 8


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In the 1830 Census he is once more found in Greenbrier County.
Roll: 190/ Page 197/ Line 10
Perkins, Samuel FREE WHITE PERSONS
MALES <5 = 1
20 - 30 = 1
70 - 80 = 1
FEMALES <5 = 1
20 - 30 = 1


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I had given up on ever finding these records!

Thanks Randy for this challenge! WHAT A GREAT WAY TO START THE NEW WEEK!!!