the 1792 1840 census records only listed heads of household by name however that
does not mean you can't put together a list of who was in the household today on the ancestral
findings podcast I'll show you some clues that will help in your 1792 1840 census research
many beginning genealogists skip these valuable record sources because they do not believe they
will include anything useful for them after all these early census records only recorded the names
of the heads of households everyone else in the household was nameless though the 1810 to 1840
census records breakdown males and females in each household by age group and free or slave status
the 1840 census even lists how many people living in the household our Revolutionary War veterans
this might not seem like much to go on to discover the people who lived with your early ancestors and
discover new ancestors in the process but it can be done you just have to know where to look for
clues to the identities of those check marks under the gender and age categories on these old census
records here's how to do it make a chart to get organized you need to know who you're looking for
so using your selected census get out a piece of paper and list the people in the household by ages
and genders along with the name of the head of the household it's better to do it in descending order
by age group start with the head of household and his or sometimes her age group then list the
age group of the oldest female then go with the age group of the oldest male oldest female next
oldest male next oldest female and down the line to the youngest male and female looking at the
age groups figure out the range of years when each person would have had to have been born
list that date range by each person on your list start checking later censuses starting in 1850
individual members of each household were listed by name and age look in the eighteen fifty census
first since it will be the closest to the census you used that did not include names children are
more likely to still be in the household in this census look up the name of the head of household
and try to find that person in the eighteen fifty cents if you're using ancestry com you can filter
your search results by location and age start with the location your ancestor was in on the
earlier census if you can't find them there in 1850 do a nationwide search still filtering by
age if you find your head of household look at the other people living with them check their ages and
genders and try to match them up with the males and females in the different age groups from the
earlier census you can often identify a lot of unnamed people from earlier census records this
way search later censuses by last name and age four grown children if some of the children from
earlier censuses are not living in the head of households home in 1850 it could be they either
died or left home to find work or get married it's easier to search for males because you can
search by last name area and age on later census records online if you find someone who seems like
they could be a match check online family trees for them to see if anyone has placed them in your
head of households family if you can't find them in another family tree look at increasingly later
census records to see if the head of household from the earlier census is living with them at
some point it was not unusual for men to take in their aging parents in earlier centuries if you're
looking for a female who was not named in an earlier census or if you found her in the eighteen
fifty census and want to find her married name do a search of the census records for eighteen sixty
and beyond searching by first name only plus age and location you will probably get at least one
hit that seems likely look at online family trees online marriage and death records and additional
census records to find the names of the parents or any parents living with her to see if she matches
up to your head of households family as you get names you can definitely place in the 1792 1840
census record write them in on your paper chart you can use this information to fill in your
family tree software later other places you can check to get names of parents for children that
may include the name of your head of household to confirm the relationship include find a grave
family search and the various state pages of the us genweb project keep looking in all the places
you can that might have records on this family and soon you will have a more robust well fleshed
out family tree based on a basic list of age ranges and genders from the early census records
do you have New England ancestry if you do you will want to look into joining the New England
historic and genealogical society in the next episode of the ancestral findings podcast I'll
share with you some of the awesome things that they have to offer be sure to check out ancestral
findings calm there you can also download older podcast messages to hear again at your convenience
that's ancestral findings calm see you the next time here on the ancestral findings podcast