52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week #3 theme "Out of Place"

When attempting to complete the time lines of each of my direct ancestors, I try to find them in census or other records and add those to my Ancestry "Facts". But I could not find our Grandpa Charley Griffin in the 1900 census. His mother lived in Oklahoma, as did many other cousins, uncles, etc. on land that was claimed in the Land Run of 1889. I knew that Charley Griffin and Hattie McGill were married in Oklahoma in 1906, and my father, Dan Griffin, was born in 1907. I found a plat map where Charley owned property in Oklahoma in 1906. But where was Charley when the 1900 census was taken? My father had said that at one time Charley worked at a livery stable in Colorado. Could that be a clue?

I let it ride for a while and followed some other family members. Colorado? Hmmm. Now I've found that Edgar Griffin, a 1st cousin of Charley went from Kansas to Colorado and married in 1899. In 1900, his family is located in Central City, Colorado, where Andrew is working as a "Hackman" and neighbors work in the gold mines. I believe a hackman drove a wagon. Could that be similar to one who works at a livery stable? I can picture that Charley and his cousin took off for the Colorado gold fields, but ended up with a job at the livery stable. Charley made some money and came back to marry his sweetheart, Hattie, in Oklahoma where he purchased some land, and became a farmer. Somehow the census takers missed my grandpa. I believe he might have been out on his horse or looking for gold that day, not "Out of Place"...HE knew where he was.

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week # 42 theme is "Lost".

As we build our family trees, we try to find and add the census records for every direct ancestor, looking at all the household members and neighbors too. But in searching for my Grandpa, Charley,  in 1900,  I do not find him.  Another LOST relative.  By 1906 he married my Grandma in Oklahoma, and we have seen the marriage certificate. Someone had passed along a comment that "Charley went off and worked at a livery stable somewhere."  I believe he was saving up $ to get married and to buy land from a relative who homesteaded in Oklahoma.  So, a few years later, we were following the lives of a previous generation.  An uncle of Charley had gone to Colorado a few years earlier,  and a cousin went to the gold fields of Central City, Colorado.  (Sounds like a good place to save up $$ for coming marriage, huh?) The 1900 census for Cousin Ed, shows him in Central City as a "Hack Man".   Could that be like  a livery stable?  I think that my Grandpa Charley was not LOST at all but was caught between census records, and  had indeed "gone off and worked at a livery stable", before coming back to get married.  Among the unidentified pictures collected over time, we found this one which we thought was Cousin Ed with his children and pups.  Sure enough, a distant cousin identified the picture as his relative who was Edgar from Colorado.  So besides finding our "Lost" Grandpa, we found Cousin Ed, who wasn't lost at all.