Census Sunday: 1850 cholera death details in a population schedule

Margaret (Alexander) Davenport was widowed before the 1850 census enumerator reached her home on 18 September. Her husband was correctly listed in the census, as was his brother, because they were alive on June 1st. Both men's names were annotated with details of their deaths at the bottom of the page. The household beginning on line 30 reads:

	age
#James Deavenport	55
Margarett      "	50
John              "	23
George          "	21
James            "	19
Ralph            "	16
Margarett      "	13
+Ralph Deavenport	60

At the bottom of the page are the following notes:

# Died August 19, 1850     Cholera     sick 2 days

+   "         "        6     "              "             "   12 hours

This is an unexpected, and probably improperly done, addition of information that might not be available from any other source. The men in the family were farmers and they lived in Troy Township, Delaware County, Ohio. The older generation was born in Ireland (Margaret Alexander in County Armagh*) and the younger ones in Ohio. Margaret was an older sister of my 3rd great-grandmother Sarah (Alexander) Poole.

*For Margaret's birthplace: Obituary Committee, compiler, Old Kenton Newspaper Death & Marriage Notices, Vol. 1 (Kenton, OH: Hardin County Genealogy Society, 1996), 146, 147, photocopies of clippings with handwritten dates 6-26-84 and 7-10-1884.

Here is the census page, click on the image to see it larger:

1850 U.S. census, Delaware County, Ohio, population schedule, Troy Township, page 278B (stamped), dwelling 2574, family 2526, James Deavenport household; digital image, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com: accessed 30 September 2010); from National Archives microfilm M432, roll 675.