Sunday, June 04, 2006

Censuses

People miss the big picture on the censuses when all they look at are ages & birthplaces. Prior to 1850 basically you only get the name of the head of household & ages and number of people in the household (there is more even to them).

This isn’t everything in the censuses, but some of the little jewels:
  • 1850: value of estate, occupation, if they can read or write, married within year, school within year, cannot read or write, remarks (whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper, or convict).
  • 1860: value of estate, value personal property, occupation, if they can read or write, married within year, school within year, cannot read or write, remarks (whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper, or convict).
  • 1870: occupation, birthplace, value real estate, value personal property, father foreign born, mother foreign born, month born in census year, month married in census year, school in census year, can't read or write, remarks (deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic), eligible to vote.
  • 1880: month of birth in census year, married in census year, single, married, widowed, divorced, occupation, health (deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, other), can't read or write.
  • 1900: starts some very interesting entries; month & years of birth, number of years married, how many children did the mother have & how many living, how many years married, immigration year, years in the US & naturalization, and if the owned a house or farm & if it was mortgaged.
  • 1910: watch for an m2 it means they are in their 2nd marriage, number of years married is sometimes the number of years of the 1st marriage, how many children did the mother have & how many living, occupation & type of work, and if the owned a house or farm & if it was mortgaged.
  • 1920: home owned or rented, if owned or mortgaged, immigration year, naturalized or alien, year of naturalization, occupation & type of work.
  • 1930: home owned or rented, value of home, age at 1st marriage (don’t mix it up number of years married), immigration year, naturalized, if they can speak english, occupation & type of work, if veteran & what war or expedition.
HeritageQuest Online has a good book to help explain in more detail about censuses. "The Census Book" by William Dollarhide, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to read it http://www.heritagequestonline.com/prod/genealogy/html/help/census_book.html

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