The following is an exercise in determining where in Dale County a particular individual, Hiram Lisenby, lived at the time of the 1840 census.  There are no existing records showing him owning land at the time.

The first part of the exercise is a listing in census order of the 10 families enumerated before him and the 10 families enumerated after him.  Any of those who were granted Federal land patents by 1841 were identified.  (Since patents generally issued a year or two after the purchase of land, the year 1841 is used for the cutoff, rather than 1840.)  The land of these families clustered along the west side of Pea River a little southwest of the present site of Elba in what is now Coffee County.  A plat map was made of this area identifying every tract purchased to that date.  The census order of those land owners who were enumerated (many were not) were marked on the map, first to determine if the sequence followed a logical route for the census taker, then to determine approximately where along the route Hiram Lisenby lived.  From this exercise, we can determine that Hiram lived in or very close to Section 25 of T19E R5N near the intersection of Helms Mill Creek and Pea River.

The map produced by this exercise is shown below.  The 20 families used in the exercise are listed below the map.