Anderson Perry Louderback, facts don't add up
Poking around in the Census to identify family members in various years, I have a problem for Anderson Perry Louderback (my gg-grandfather).
In 1850, he's listed as Anderson Lauderback, 3 mos. old in home of his parents, Lewis and Rachel (Turvey) Louderback of Lawrence Co., Ohio. Apparently he has a twin brother, another Lewis? Hard to read the census image on that name.
Jumping ahead to 1880, he appears in New Castle Twp, Lawrence Co., Ohio, as A.P. Louderback, 29. Listed are wife Mary (Sturgill), 26 and children Mary, 6, Rachel, 5, and Harry, 1.
And this agrees with his listing for 1900 which finds him as Perry Lauderback, 49, in Jackson Co., Ohio, Coal Twp., with Mary E.(llen Sturgill), 45, Perry, 21, Magga A. 16, Warren, 12, Edward, 10 and Ernest, 6 And his sister Sarah, who married Mary Ellen Sturgill's father Elihu Sturgill, appears just down from this household in Jackson Co., though Sarah is now a widow for the second time (first husband was a Mr. Holmes.) Also living nearby is the household of Thomas and Rachel Wickline. Rachel is the 5-year-old Rachel from the 1880 census.
In between it's more complicated. I haven't been able to spot any of the Louderbacks in this family in the 1860 census.
In 1870, it looks like Elihu Sturgill is in Lawrence Co., but not yet married Sarah Louderback, who is probably a Holmes, though I don't see her in the record. But I do find a Perry Louderback, 19, a railroad worker, in Jackson Co., Ohio, Milton Twp., in the home of another family who may be named "Munn," though the census taker's scrawl is very difficult on this name. Might be him, and I guess it probably is.
But here's the big problem. The 1890 Veterans census includes a record for Anderson P. Lauderback who was a Private in Co.D of the 36th Ohio Infantry of the Union Army from Aug. 1861 to July 26, 1865.
Well, if these are all the same person, then it requires that he joined up when he was no more than 11 years old and served until he was no more than 15 years old.
I suppose that's entirely possible. There were some young soldiers in the Civil War, though moreso on the Southern side. And I'm already aware of how ages are fudged when someone wants to go to war -- a grandfather who said he was 18 instead of 16 at the outbreak of WWI and a gggg-grandfather who said he was 43 instead of 57 to get into a civil war cavalry troupe. But it's pretty hard for an 11-year-old to pass as a military-aged soldier for 4 years, at least in my mind.
So I have to wonder whether these are in fact all the same person. I'm already aware of at least 2 other Perry Louderbacks and at least one other Anderson Louderback from around the same time period. There may have been more.
Can anyone shed any light on these records?