A Decade At A Glance
If your ancestors have American roots, official U.S. Census documents are one of the best places to turn for putting together your family history.
These documents show a population in a particular area in the country. Including a varying level of detail, these official records generally include such vital statistics as the names, ages and ethnic backgrounds of people living at a set address.
The United States began taking census information in 1790 and has continued the tradition every ten years since. Although the first documents date back to the 1790s, be warned that many of these originals did not survive. Only a handful of states still have information from this time period.
Although some of the time periods are spotty and the questions vary from each census, these official documents are incredibly beneficial for researchers. By including the names of each person living in a home (in later census reports) and their connections to each other, these tools are great for helping family history hunters fill in the blanks of their family trees.
Those who pursue census information will find the very early documents include just basic information. In 1790, for example, the questions census takers recorded answers to were few. All that was required was the name of the head of the household and the numbers of people in certain age and class groups. This was done by household and didn't necessarily show relationships.
As the years passed, census documents became more and more detailed. By 1920, the documents included the street on which a family lived; the name, age and sex of each person in a house; whether the family owned or rented; each person's color or race; marital status; year of immigration; literacy level; each person's place of birth; genealogical information about each person's mother and father's place of birth; professional information and more.
As you can see the census really evolved into a full document that's become a vital tool for those searching for their family histories. In few other places will those tracking down family history find more information in a single document than in looking at census records.
To find census records, check with libraries and archives centers in the area you're researching. Many times these files can even be found online for quick searches.
