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US Census Info for Genealogy Use
The United States uses its census for many things - to help keep track of its citizens, to know what areas need funding, for determining voting districts. For a genealogist, the US census may hold the key to determining where family lines connect and who was living where.
In essence, every 10 years the US government sends out poll takers to EVERY household in the entire US. The poll takers write down a variety of things, from the name and age of each member of the household, to their relationship to each other, their job and their birthplace. This information can be extremely important to a genealogist.
The census began in 1790, and was done every 10 years afterwards. The records are currently public from 1790 to 1930, with 1930 just having become available in April 2002. These records are stored by NARA and microfilm versions of the records can be seen at any NARA location. Note that a fire in 1921 destroyed many of the records from the 1890 census.
Putting these microfilm records onto the web or onto any computer format is a HUGE undertaking. The LDS did this for 1880 after many years and quite a bit of money. The HUGE set of CDs it takes up (over 50!) is available at the low price of about $1 per CD. Now that the work is done, you can also Look on Ancestry.com for some of this information.
Remember, transcriptions are a good way to start, but they often leave out critical pieces of information, and can be wrong. It's always wise to go to NARA to look at the raw microfilms yourself, to know for sure what the census info says.
Check out what USGENEWB has transcribed!
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Note - Lisa Shea wrote this content for the genealogy site at BellaOnline.com - you might still find this content there as well. That's fine :) I gave permission!
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