welcome back to the ancestral findings podcast
the u.s federal census collection is an excellent genealogical research for beginning
and experienced genealogists most people doing research on their family tree use it
quite often this is because it provides a wealth of information on american families going back
to 1790. this is what the u.s census is where to find it and what information you might find in it
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the next thing you should be looking at in your family history research as a beginning genealogist
is the u.s federal census collection this collection is considered almost as fundamental
a source to beginning genealogists in the united states as are vital records you can easily access
digitized and indexed images of the census on websites like ancestry.com familysearch.org
genealogybank.com and others it is also available for free on microfilm with accompanying index
books at most genealogy libraries and at the national archives in washington dc
what is so great about the u.s federal census it tells you who was living in a household at
the time that census was taken in the united states the census is taken every 10 years
on the year that ends in a zero it began in 1790 and is still going on every 10 years to this day
u.s federal census records are released to the public 72 years after they were originally taken
this means that all u.s federal census records from 1790 to 1940 are available to the public
right now and the 1950 u.s federal census will be released to the public in april of 2022 in the
census records from 1790 to 1840 only the names of the heads of the household were included in the
census everyone else was basically a check mark under a column listing whether someone else in the
household was male or female and what age category they fell into some of the earlier censuses also
listed whether someone was black and if black free or enslaved if you know anything about your
ancestors from those decades you can sometimes figure out who was who based on the check marks
if not those check marks will give you potential spouses children and other relatives to look up
and if you're lucky discover after 1840 the names of everyone in the household began being listed in
the 1850 census and onward this allows you to find out the names of more of the people in your family
the ages were also listed beginning with the 1850 census which can assist you in locating that
person in subsequent census records and in vital records in later censuses even more information
on each person listed was added depending on the census you can find such things as the person's
birthplace birth date birthplaces of both of their parents extremely helpful in finding earlier
generations even without their names whether someone was naturalized or a resident alien when
they came to america whether they were married how long they have been married what their job was
whether they could read or write whether they were disabled or a veteran and of which wore whether
they attended school in the past year whether they were unemployed in the past year and for how long
whether they lived in a farm or a house whether they rented or owned their home and
how many children a woman had given birth to along with how many were still living
also extremely helpful in furthering the names on your family tree [Music]
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i hope you have a wonderful day happy searching [Music]
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