The US Federal Census is a crucial part of genealogical research for persons who lived in the United States. Over the next few weeks I will share some information about various census years, highlights of the most helpful and interesting census questions, and some examples of how you can use Census records effectively to help further your research.
This will be a great series for many researchers. What’s was asked in each census, using the data to prove/disprove relationships, the demographic information available…. I hope you won’t mind if I re-blog some of them with proper credit to your efforts, of course. I work with another genealogist in one of my “ventures” whereby I help him keep all his students up to speed. There are a few things he “teaches” that are flat out wrong. For example, he insists that the 72 year privacy rule is based on life expectancy. Never mind that the rule was created in 1952 that a man’s life expectancy was about 65 and a woman’s about 70. Sorry for the rant…I should save it for my own blog!!!
I don’t mind at all – reblog away. And feel free to rant anytime. It’s funny to me how misinformation like that can spread so easily. I always hope that I have my facts straight when I am teaching! I am only human after all…
Thanks…for both!
Of course!
I love censuses too…when they’re indexed properly! Hate it when I can’t find an ancestor in Ancestry, so I look at Family Search, then end up going through a community’s whole census, page by page. Of course we can’t always blame the indexers, sometimes it’s the fault of the enumerator, either they didn’t hear correctly, or they didn’t spell correctly…but now I’m ranting like Dave! Looking forward to see what else you have to say about censuses.
It can be very frustrating when you can’t find your family! I have also had to look page by page at times. Then when you find them it’s all the sweeter. Feel free to rant anytime. 🙂
Looking forward to the forthcoming posts!
Thank you Alex!