Information Overload! The 1900 Census I have to admit, if I am researching someone who was alive at the beginning of the 20th century, the record I most want to find is the 1900 census. It’s packed full of new information that was not asked before. Not only does the 1900 census answer many new […]
Something New A new development happened in the 1880 census. It was the first decade the relationship to the head of the household was recorded. As we saw in the previous blog post, Digging In, the relationship column helped define when the census is available to us today, 72 years after it was taken. Unidentified
Which House was Grandpa in? As I was choosing a new subject I realized I skipped over an important question on the census, the house number. The number of the house has been on the census from 1850 until 1950. There are two reasons this often overlooked detail is important. The Precise Location One is
🎶 I’ve Been Working on the … 🎶 Starting in 1880, most every census asked questions about employment. The questions varied over the decades, but most censuses in this group asked whether a person was employed. The exception is the 1920 census, which just asked what type of employee a person was. In 1940 the
Does the Date Really Matter? For some unknown reason, the date the count was made for the census has changed over the decades. From 1850 until 1900 it was June 1 of the census year. In 1910 the date was changed to April 15, and in 1920 it changed again to January 1. In 1930
Reading, Writing, Rithmetic! Another question related to schooling is whether a person could read or write. Although phrased differently, the basic question was asked in 1850-1930. This question can tell us several things. You might wonder why the question stopped being asked after 1930. By that time education had become standardized in the United States,
Have You Got the Smarts? Most of the census returns since 1850 have asked about schooling. School related questions are on each census from that year until 1940 except for the 1880 census. The 1950 census asks about schooling in the supplemental questions, so you have a one in five chance to learn about your
Disabilities One thing about the 19th century censuses that I have always been curious about are the questions about various disabilities. From 1830 through 1880 and again in 1910 the census these questions appeared. Some Possible Answers It’s important to remember that often people answered the census based on what they wanted others to know.
How Much Are You Worth? The 1850, 1860, and 1870 U.S. census returns all asked how much each person’s real estate was worth. Believe it or not, this is a valuable question for many reasons. The 1860 and 1870 census also asked the value of a person’s personal property. This can be almost as useful!
Nativity The last question that was asked on every U.S. census from 1850-1950 was where a person was born. I, like many of you, lament the enumerator not asking the name of the county as well as the state. After all, how hard would it have been? Other Countries Sometimes when a person was foreign
