U.S. Census Research Online Resources

Why use the census?

• You can use the census to --
• Find birthplace of head of household, his children and parents
• Identify family relationships · Find ancestor as a child to identify his parents.
• Learn year of immigration, naturalization status, and birthplace of parents giving another avenue of research.
• Learn veteran status to request pension records which can give birth and death dates, proof of marriage and children's births, and much more.
• Learn more. · Learn ancestor's address so that you can visit ancestral house.

U.S. census history
http://www.rootsweb.com/~census/help/history.html

• 1780s US constitution written and ratified, requires a census every 10 years for apportioning representatives. States may have additional ones as needed.
• 1790 First census taken, over a period of 18 months. Records of six states destroyed during War of 1812, but reconstructed from tax records.
• 1800-1820 First Monday in August designated as Census Day.
• 1830-1900 June 1st designated as Census Day. All but 6160 names in the 1890 census were later destroyed in a fire in 1921
• 1910- Other specific dates designed as Census Day

Tips for census research

• Information was to be recorded as of the official census day, not the day the enumerator came. Depending on how closely the enumerator and person giving information followed instructions and remembered correctly, the information might have been given as of any time in that range,. This can result in the same people being enumerated in different locations.
• It wasn't unheard of to get the information from a neighbor or sometimes the only person at home would be one of the kids who "thinks maybe he was born in....".
• Not everyone in the household is necessarily a family member, and a blank surname doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the same as the head of household.
• Another thing to watch for is what was known as "padding the census".  Enumerators were usually paid by the number of households they visited. If it was a very rural area they were paid a little more per household as the dwellings were much fewer. Some really good examples are at ftp://ftp.us-census.org/pub/usgenweb/census/ny/cayuga/1860/notes.txt  In Ira, NY there’s a deceased person on the census records. In Fleming, NY some families are duplicated with minor changes two or three times.
• Great website searching tool (One-Step) located at http://stevemorse.org/#us

Tour of online databases:

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