Living in the County...Missing from the Census?

The search for Uriah Hancock in 1810 Oneida County, New York

AI generated Image

One of the more interesting problems I encountered while researching the Hancock family involves Uriah Hancock in Oneida County, New York. Several records suggest he was living in the area during the first decade of the nineteenth century, yet when the 1810 federal census was taken, no household headed by Uriah Hancock appears in the county. At first glance, this might suggest that he had already left the area. A closer look at the records, however, points toward a different possibility.

The starting point is the Hancock family's migration to New York. A published Hancock genealogy in The New-England Historical and Genealogical Register states that Jabez Hancock removed "with the greater part of his children" to Paris, Oneida County, New York. Among those children was Uriah Hancock, born 18 April 1772. The same account reports that Rachel (Wright) Hancock died at Waterville, Oneida County, in 1814, placing the family firmly within the county during this period.

The strongest evidence for Uriah's presence comes from local land records. A notice published in the Columbian Gazette on 13 January 1806 references both Uriah Hancock and Gad Hancock in connection with a mortgage involving John C. Devereux and land in the Town of Paris. While the record does not identify the relationship between the two men, published family accounts and genealogies identify both as sons of Jabez Hancock and Rachel Wright. Whatever their exact relationship, the notice demonstrates that both men were active in the area in 1806.

Given this evidence, I expected to find Uriah in the 1810 census. Instead, I found only two Hancock households in the county: one headed by "J Hancock" and another headed by "G Hancock." The G Hancock household appears to represent a relatively young family consisting of a male between the ages of twenty-six and forty-four, a younger female, and a single male child. The household is small and does not resemble what would be expected for Uriah Hancock and Lucy Leach, who appear to have already had several children by this time.

The J Hancock household is considerably larger. It includes an older male and female, both over forty-five years of age, along with a male and female in the twenty-six to forty-four age category and several younger children. If J Hancock is Jabez Hancock, the ages align remarkably well with what might be expected of a household that included both Jabez and Rachel Hancock and the family of their son Uriah. Uriah himself would have been thirty-eight years old in 1810, placing him squarely within the twenty-six to forty-four age category. His wife Lucy would also fit within that same range, and the younger household members are generally consistent with the ages of children that Uriah and Lucy may have had by that date.

None of this proves that Uriah was living in the J Hancock household. Census records from this period identify only heads of household, leaving everyone else hidden behind age categories. Nevertheless, the theory offers a reasonable explanation for several otherwise puzzling facts. It accounts for Uriah's presence in local records before 1810, explains why no separate Uriah Hancock household appears in the census, and fits comfortably within the broader pattern of the Hancock family's residence in Oneida County.

At present, I view the J Hancock household as the most likely place to find Uriah Hancock in the 1810 census. Additional records may eventually confirm or disprove that conclusion, but the available evidence suggests that Uriah was not absent from Oneida County at all. Instead, he may have been living within a larger Hancock household and therefore escaped notice because his name never appeared on the census page.

Sources

1. The New-England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. 36 (1882).
2. Columbian Gazette (Utica, New York), 13 January 1806, mortgage notice involving Uriah Hancock and Gad Hancock.
3. 1810 U.S. Census, Oneida County, New York.
4. Marriage of Uriah Hancock and Lucy Leach, Wilbraham, Massachusetts, 19 May 1791.