The Census

Information in Indexes to U.S. Federal Census Records from 1790-1880

• Printed indexes and on CD-ROM, 1790-1860 (some for later years).
• Indexed by name of head of household.
• Names of district/town and county of residence for each head of household.
• Provides volume/page numbers of the original census record.

Mortality Schedules

From 1850-1880 mortality schedules were taken simultaneously with population schedules. They contain:

• Names of persons who died within the census year (usually from 31 May of the year preceding the census through 30 May of the census year)
• Birthplace (state or country only)
• Age at death
• Cause of death

State and Territory Censuses

Many states and territories took censuses similar to the U.S. Federal censuses, and often taken between those federal census years. Not every state and territory took censuses, research outlines for each state will note if there are any state or territorial censuses for that specific location.

Those states that took censuses included more complete information than in the federal census records, for example:

• County or town of birth
• Number of years of residency in the state

Helps for Finding Your Ancestor in Census Records

• Check alternate spellings.
• Check the Family History Library Catalog locality section for your state (and country) under "Census records".
• Write the state historical societies or state archives for census information.
• Check the FHLC topics "Military records" or "Schools" or "Taxation" for special census and tax rolls that served as census substitutes, especially for the 1890 census.
• See State Census Records (Lainhart 1992) for a complete listing of state census records.
• Check every census schedule through 1930 in which a family appears. Note the family birthplaces, like "Iowa" or "Ohio", which may show a family's migration.
• Look for all children of the ancestral family; elderly parents often lived with one of their children.

Foreign Census Records 

Most foreign countries kept census records. England and Wales began keeping census records in 1801, whereas Denmark began census recrods in 1769 and Norway in the 1600s. These recrods are described in genealogical guidebooks found in the Family History Library Catalog. If the census you need has not been filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, write to the national archives of the country and request the needed records. An archivist will respond and indicate where the records are housed and if they are accessible to the public. For an overview of census records in several countries, see The Handbook of National Population Censuses (Goyer 1992). Addresses of archives in other countries can be found on the web or in The World of Learning (Europa Publications 1997).

The 1881 British Isles and the 1881 Canadian censuses are available at www.familysearch.org.

Cautions in Using Census Records

• Children dying in infancy or children moving away from the parental home before the census was taken are not included.
• What appears to be a child before 1880 may be a niece or nephew.
• The wife in the census may not be the mother of the children in the household.
• Ages and birthplaces are sometimes wrong and often inconsistent from one census to another.
• Some families do not appear on the census records.