William and Cornelia Mix in 1915

What a treat for me - spending some time on genealogy research during my Christmas break!  It was a busy year - what time I did have I spent on my Domelle line and got a lot of breakthroughs - so now I want to turn my attention back to my Mix line to see what has popped up in the interim.

I did a search on Ancestry on my maternal great-grandmother Cornelia Elizabeth (Akins) Mix and the first thing I noticed was a New York State census from 1915 that I hadn't seen before.  Yay for New York!  On pg 4 of the NY State Census for Election District 03, Assembly District 01, City of Caroline, in Tompkins County they were listed.

So without a doubt, there's my family - my maternal grandmother is not yet born in 1915 but her old siblings and parents are listed:

They are listed as living on the crossroad between Caroline Depot Road and State Road 1004.  I found Caroline Depot road right away on a current map, but State Road 1004 must be an old name for something because I searched and was unable to locate it.  But they were on one of those crossroads.  Caroline Depot was named this because there was once a railroad line from Ithaca to Owego.  This little road and the depot was about 8 miles southeast of Ithaca.  The depot station and the railroad are both long gone but the name remains.

So in the house at the crossroads, we've got my 38 year old Great-Grandfather William H. Mix and his 28 year old wife Cornelia E. (Akins).  They were married Christmas Day in 1904 - this is a photo I have of Cornelia that says it's from 1904 - maybe it was taken during her engagement?

And now, 10 1/2 years later, they have 6 children (which includes one set of twins). 4 boys - Floyd (age 8), Spencer (age 7), Laurance (age 4) and William (age 56 days).  The twins were 2 year old girls Mazie and Daisy (listed in this census by her birth name Mable).

That must have been a boisterous household!!  At least the 3 oldest boys went off to school during the day!

I found a photo of Cornelia with the twins were they were just babies in 1913:

So in 1915 those little girls are now in their terrible two's and there's also a 2 month old baby to care for - YIKES!

William's occupation is listed as "Farmer" which is what he did all his life - I don't know that he ever owned his own land, as far as I know he always farmed for others, or worked as an itinerant farm laborer once the economy got bad in the 1930s.  The family moved A LOT - following the work.  I have a list that my Great-Grandmother kept of all the places they lived and at which houses the kids were born in.  Cornelia was wonderful for keeping lists of all kinds of things - birth/death dates, addresses, etc.

For when this census was taken - June of 1915 - this corresponds to when Cornelia's list says they were living at the "Bates Pl." which means the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bates.  So it was Mr. Bates land that they were farming.  She also lists her son William as being born at that house.

They lived at this house listed in the census from 01 March 1915 through 01 April 1916 when they moved on to another farm.

And so that completes my analysis of the state census I found!  Maybe I'll come across an old map that shows the State Road 1004 or the name of Bates on farm land.  We'll see!