Using Census Records For Family Trees by:Mike Selvon
At the federal level, census records are a great place to start researching your family's historical records
. You can learn which countries your family members came from, where they first lived and worked in the United States and whether you have any war heroes in the family.
You can trace the average lifespan of your relatives and trace patterns in their occupational choices. Whether you just want to print out a little report or look at actual documents and newspaper articles in the library's microfiche, you'll be surprised at what you can learn.
As you can imagine, the sort of information required for the census records has changed over time. For instance, if you were to look up a relative in the 1790 Census, you would find the family head's name, a listing of any free white men and women, and a list of all slaves. By 1800, age, race, sex and status ("free" or "slave") would be more clearly demarcated. By the 1820 Census, you could gain information as to what industries your relatives worked in (agriculture, commerce or manufacturing).
In 1840, new family genealogy markers are given: the names of deaf/dumb/blind people in the house, the names of insane people, the names of military personnel or pensioners and the literacy levels of those living in the household. Also, three more classes of employment were added. In 1850, you could learn the value of your family's real estate, whether someone got married that year, what year school was attended, the birthplaces of your family members and whether someone was a pauper or a convict.
In 1870, you can learn if the household had foreign-born parents and whether anyone was denied the right to vote for being a rebel. A popular year to look up is 1880, when you can get a list of how all household members are related, the address of the homestead, if anyone was unemployed during the year for sickness or disability, schedules for anyone who died that year and all other previously mentioned information.
The census records are released every 72 years, by law (Title 44, U.S. Code). Therefore, in April 2012, you will be able to view the 1940 records. Currently, you can only view everything before then. Starting in the forties, you will be able to learn what your family member's incomes were and also whether they worked in the private or the public sectors.
Many genealogists and family tree maker researchers can find a wealth of information in the "Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790" (12 volumes, Washington, DC, 1907 to 1908) or the more comprehensive A Century of Population Growth, 1790 to 1900 (Washington, DC, 1909), which provides summary tables from all censuses taken before 1900.
Most local libraries have copies of these two useful books. You can also visit the National Archives in Washington, which holds microfilm copies of the original population schedules from 1790 to 1930 (except for 1890 records, which were destroyed by a fire in 1921).
Looking up census records can be a rewarding experience. Once you gather all the information, you can create family tree charts and list all the information you can to keep complete family records that can be passed down to each subsequent generation after you.
You may have people's birthdates, death dates or a general understanding of how people were related, but the federal census can add details like military service, divorces, marriages, child deaths, occupation, income and whether someone was insane or disabled in your family. The more information you add, the clearer your picture will become.
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