The 1910 census shows a son Emil, 9 years old, suggesting a birth after the 1900 census.

A second 1910 census record shows Emil as 10 years old. The 1905 Wisconsin census also suggests an 1899 birth.

Several trees on Ancestry ignore Arnold and identify Emil Ernst born in DEC 1899. This person can be found in 1920 and later census documents as well as in a WWI draft registration.

The WWI draft registration give an exact birthday in DEC 1899 for Emil, and this is used by the Ancestry trees. However, this record lists "nearest relative" as an aunt in Washington State!!! There seems no absense of closer relatives in Tomahawk, so one wonders why this Emil did not reference one of them. Nothing in this record ties this Emil to our family (other than the DEC 1899 birth for Arnold in 1900)

A site visit to Taylor and Lincoln counties will be conducted at the earliest reasonable date.

Until more convincing and definitive data is developed, I choose to retain the entries for both Arnold and Emil. I can find no alternative candidate for the Emil Ernst of the WWI record, so I will assume that he is a member of the family of Rudolph Charles Steinbach, and that he is the Arnold of 1900.

In 1900, Anna Steinbach declares "5 children, 4 living". I will convert the entry for Arnold to one for this lost child.

While the reference to Arnold may be just a fluke or mistake, I think a more reasonable explanation is that the child that died was named Emil, and that between 1900 and 1905, the family decided to reclaim the name Emil by assigning it to Arnold.

Yet a third explanation is that this Germanic family had assigned more than two given names to this child, and Arnold was one of those. However, if this is the case, why the change to preferring Emil. I see no potential confusion with the names of other children.