One of the best places to search for your ancestors is in the U.S. census records. The United States has done a census every ten years since 1790.
A census, according to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, is "a periodic governmental enumeration of a population." The government counts its inhabitants on a regular basis and records the totals. In the United States, both federal and state governments have conducted these "periodic enumerations."
Few records detail as much about individuals and families as do the federal censuses. Many times the census is the best starting point for further genealogical research. If for no other reason, census records are important sources for placing individuals in specific places at specific times. When you can't find any family, vital, or religious records, census records may be the only means to find any details of a person's life.
The first census was taken in 1790, under the Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. That census, taken by U.S. marshals on horseback, counted 3.9 million people. As America grew, the nation's interests grew more complex. The country needed statistics to help people understand what was happening and to plan for growth, and the content of the decennial census changed accordingly. In 1810, the census was expanded to obtain information on the manufacturing, quantity and value of products. In 1840, the census added questions on fisheries. And, in 1850, the census collected data on issues such as taxation, churches, pauperism and crime.
Over the decades, censuses expanded to new areas under U.S. jurisdiction. There were so many inquiries and so many new geographic entities in the census of 1880 that it took almost a full decade to publish the results. This led to the first use of tabulating machines in the 1890 census, which counted nearly 63 million people.
The first census in 1790 listed names of heads of households. Beginning with the 1850 census the names of everyone else living in the household were also listed.
A great way to search census records is to use a website such as Ancestry.com. They have available the following years: 1790, 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, 1840, 1850 (including slave schedules), 1860 (including slave schedules), 1870, 1880, 1890 (fragment, census substitute, and veteran's schedules), 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930.
As you search through the census records on Ancestry.com be sure to recognize that the census indexes do not include the complete census data, but they provide sufficient information to locate the individual in the original record. This can save considerable research time. Most census indexes include the name of the head of the household, the location where they were living during the census year, and the page where their entry can be found on the original census record.
Searching through census records can be a great way to find that long lost great-grandfather or learn more about how your ancestors lived during a certain decade.
Author Resource:-
Allen Johnson is a content developer for Search Census Records and 1920Census.net.
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