SD Census Cards, Part 1: 1905

The images below are from this Family Search database. According to the South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center website “the actual 1905 census cards are stored in the State Archives at the South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre. General information found on the census includes name, county, city, address, (township, section, and range if applicable), age, occupation and place of birth. The census enumerators also marked if the individual was male or female, white, black, red or yellow, married, single, widowed or divorced, whether they could or could not read or write, and if they were blind, deaf, idiotic or insane.” A few other helpful fields are: Years in South Dakota, Years in the United States, Birthplace of Mother and Birthplace of Father.

I have 7 ancestors that appear in this census, in addition to many other relatives. James Robert and Hannah (GIBBON) OGDEN are two of my great-great-grandparents, as are John F. and Julia Ann (ADELBUSCH) HERREN. Their children, William F. and Mary (HERREN) OGDEN, are my great-grandparents, the parents of my maternal grandfather Emery OGDEN.

The James Robert Ogden Family

Hannah and J.R. Ogden

Name: J. R. Ogden
Ward: 3, City: Geddes [Charles Mix Co.]
Age: 69, Occupation: Labor
Place of Birth: England
Years in SD: 24, Years in US: 30
Birthplace of Father: England
Birthplace of Mother: England

The calculated date of birth from this information is 1838, which is a little off from the 1836 date in our family tree. That’s not nearly as bad, though, as the place of birth. Everything we have shows his place of birth as New Brunswick. I suppose if you squint your eyes really tight you can pretend the British colony of Canada in 1838 is England. The same goes for the birthplaces of his parents. In the 1880 US Census, he gave all three birthplaces as New Brunswick. Not sure what is going on here. The time in the US outside of SD, he spent near Deerfield, MI. I’ll have more on that some other time.

Name: Hannah Ogden
Ward: 3, City: Geddes
Age: 68, Occupation: House wife
Place of Birth: Canada
Years in SD: 24, Years in US: 30
Birthplace of Father: Scotland
Birthplace of Mother: Scotland

At least Hannah knew where she and her parents were born and her age matches the birth year that we have for her.

The John F. Herren Family
Name: John F. Herren
County: Charles Mix, PO: Geddes, Township: Jackson
Section: 29, Township: 97, Range: 67
Age: 57, Occupation: Farmer
Place of Birth: Wis
Years in SD: 22, Years in US: 57
Birthplace of Father: ---
Birthplace of Mother: ---

The printing on this image is very faded, so I played around it with to get it to be more legible. The interesting information on this card is the location of the farm. It’s southwest of Geddes, SD and the location where he filed a homestead claim on 1-June-1903. He was in SD from around 1883 according to this census information. Not sure why it took him twenty years to establish a homestead. I’ll have to see if I can find him in the 1885 territory census and the 1895 state census. I sure hope Charles Mix County is in the archives of what still exists for those censuses. Curiously John Herren does not appear in the 1906 Atlas for the county. I’ll have more on the Herren migration in a future post.

Name: Julia Ann Herren
County: Charles Mix, PO: Geddes, Township: Jackson
Section: 29, Township: 97, Range: 67
Age: 55, Occupation: Housekeeper
Place of Birth: Wis
Years in SD: 22, Years in US: 55
Birthplace of Father: Germany
Birthplace of Mother: US NY

The printing on this card’s image is very, very faded. Anyway, all of the information jives with what we already knew about Julia Ann. Nothing to see here; let’s move on.

William F Ogden family
William F. and Mary Ogden

Name: W F Ogden
County: Charles Mix, PO: Geddes, Township: Moore
Section: 11, Township: 98, Range: 66
Age: 32, Occupation: farmer
Place of Birth: Canada
Years in SD: 20, Years in US: 29
Birthplace of Father: not know
Birthplace of Mother: not know

Well, it’s no wonder that William did not know where his father, JR Ogden was born—as we saw above, even his father did not state it correctly. I’m thinking they were not much into genealogy. He also seems to have a different memory from his mother and father as to when they came to the US and SD. It’s going to take a lot more research to figure out where they were when. William's farm was northwest of Geddes, SD. He filed a homestead claim on that section in 1906. He had filed claims on two other sections in that township in 1903. I still have a lot of research into land records ahead of me.

Name: Mary Ogden
County: Charles Mix, PO: Geddes, Township: Moore
Section: 11, Township: 98, Range: 66
Age: 30, Occupation: farmers wife
Place of Birth: Wis.
Years in SD: 22, Years in US: 30
Birthplace of Father: Wis
Birthplace of Mother: Wis

Not much new information here. Her date for coming to SD from Wisconsin matches her parents from above, so that helps in determining when they moved from Wisconsin to SD.

Name: Emery Ogden
County: Charles Mix, PO: Geddes, Township: Moore
Section: 11, Township: 98, Range: 66
Age: 8, Occupation: farmers wife
Place of Birth: Wis.
Years in SD: 8, Years in US: 8
Birthplace of Father: Canada
Birthplace of Mother: Wis.

No new or contradictory information here. Since my grandfather turned 9 on 9-Sep-1905, the census information was gathered before that date in 1905.

In future posts, I’ll cover records for my ancestors from other South Dakota censuses.