Your Ancestor’s Name … Maybe! The first major column in the census, and arguably the one our eyes are first drawn to, are the names. Ideally these names would be the proper names of our ancestors, would be spelled correctly, and would be legible. Unfortunately that is often not the case. 19th Century Literacy Literacy […]
Your Number Please! Another helpful item in the heading is the page number. Not necessarily the one that was stamped but the one that was written when the page was originally copied. Sometimes it is called a sheet number. In an effort to make things easier for us, the people who organize and provide these
Not so fast! Before we get to the body of the census, the left columns need a little more attention. Things that have been in these columns consistently since 1850 are the dwelling and family numbers. These numbers can help you determine your ancestor’s living conditions. If the dwelling number remains the same – or
First Things First Before we jump into the body of the census let’s look at other information on the outside of the body of the census, the heading. The heading contains some information that will help you better understand what is contained in the body of the census. One of those is the date. When
Enumeration District??? You have probably noticed a line in the heading of some census documents for Enumeration District. Even though they weren’t labeled, they have been around since the first census in 1790. The enumeration district was the area that an enumerator, the person recording information for the census, stayed within when recording census information.
Location, Location, Location One of the things often overlooked on the U.S. Census is the location of the households. One reason is they weren’t recorded consistently. The other is because they were written sideways and often unrecognizable. Add That Street! Starting with the 1880 U.S. Census the Instructions to the Enumerators (Enumerators were people conducting
The Whole is Greater We’ve talked a little in the past about looking at the censuses during your ancestor’s lives as one collection. Let’s take a closer look. This is where the old saying, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” holds true. Questions Yield Results Since each decade’s census, for the
Digging In Some More First Things There wasn’t room in the First Things First blog to give you all the background information about the census, so allow me to share some more now. The U.S. Census is available to the public seventy two years after it was recorded. In the last several censuses, there has
Free Tools to Aid Census Research When researching the census, there are two tools that will make researching easier and save you time. They are two free books, Measuring America and a book (made by you) of blank census[1] forms. Measuring America Measuring America is a free download from the U.S. Census Bureau. You can
First Things First Before we dive into the census, let’s talk about where the census comes from and things we need to keep in mind as we use the census. The U.S. Constitution directed the Congress to count the population every ten years. The census has been conducted the first year of every decade ever