Archive for the ‘Genealogy’ Category
A census is an official inventory of the population in a particular area at a particular time. In addition to counting the inhabitants of an area, the census generally collects other vital information, such as names, ages, citizenship status, and ethnic background. Each census can prove to be invaluable in painting a portrait of a family at a particular place and time. Census information can be a great starting point for someone tracing his or her family heritage.
For genealogists, census records have become a very important tool when conducting research in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In theory, the census counts every person in every household, in every district, in every town, in the state or country the census was taken in. In reality, they did (and still do) miss people, for various reasons. Quite often there are misspelled names. To add further confusion, most census information has been extracted by people not familiar with the handwriting of the census taker, not to mention local names that the taker would have been familiar with. Sometimes immigrants gained jobs as census takers and without major familiarity with the language; there are some discrepancies in information. This requires a researcher to be diligent in searching for an individual.
The name of your relative or ancestor, and the state he or she resided in, is enough to get you started searching census records. The first Federal Population Census was taken in 1790, and has been taken every ten years since. However, data from recent censuses are not available after 1930 because of a 72-year restriction on access to the Census. Most researchers find it most helpful to begin with the 1930 Census and work backwards to locate people in earlier generations.
The National Archives has the census schedules on microfilm available from 1790 to 1930. However, please note that most of the 1890 Census was destroyed in a Department of Commerce fire, though partial records are available for some states. Census records can provide the building blocks of your research, allowing you to both confirm information, and to learn more.
Before the 1850 Census, few details were recorded. From 1790-1840, only the head of household is listed and the number of household members in selected age groups. However, from 1850 to 1930, details are provided for all individuals in each household, such as names of family members, their ages at a certain point in time, their state or country of birth, their parent’s birthplaces, year of immigration, street address, marriage status and years of marriage, occupation, value of their home and personal belongings and the crops that they grew. Not all of this kind of information is available in every census, but dependant upon the year most certainly some of it is.
Having partial information on past family members or heritage is a good starting point from a genealogy standpoint. Diligently searching census records will help fill in some blanks and will be a good start to finding more information on the family you are researching.
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