In addition to the population schedules, the federal government requested special information for administrative decisions. These special schedules can be quite useful for genealogy.
An act of 3 March 1879 provided that any state could take an interdecennial census with partial reimbursement by the federal government. Colorado, Florida, Nebraska, and the territories of Dakota and New Mexico returned schedules to the secretary of the interior. The schedules are numbered 1, 2, 3, and 5.
US 1885 Census
Schedule No. 1, inhabitants, lists the number of dwellings and families. It also identifies each inhabitant by name, color, sex, age, relationship to head of family, marital status, occupation, place of birth, place of birth of parents, literacy, and kind of sickness or disability, if any.
Schedule No. 2, agriculture, gives the name of the farm owner and his tenure, acreage, farm value, expenses, estimated value of farm products, number and kind of livestock, and amount and kind of produce.
Schedule No. 3, products of industry, lists the name of the owning corporation or individual, name of business or products, amount of capital invested, number of employees, wages and hours, number of months in operation during the year, value of materials used, value of products, and amount and type of power used.
Schedule No. 5, mortality, lists the name, age, sex, color, marital status, place of birth, place of birth of parents, and occupation, and gives the cause of death for every person who died within the year ending 31 May 1885.
The schedules are interfiled and arranged alphabetically by state and then by county. Schedules for a number of counties are missing. The originals are in the National Archives.
The 1885 census is useful for locating data about individuals who were living on rapidly growing frontiers: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, Florida, and North and South Dakota; for locating and documenting newly arrived immigrants from Europe; and for documenting small businessmen and farmers-many of them immigrants-who were just getting started in their businesses. The manufacturers schedule for 1885 is the latest one available for research.
The official enumeration day of the 1850 census was 1 June 1850. All questions asked were supposed to refer to that date. By 1850, there were a total of thirty-one states in the Union, with Florida,Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, and California being the latest editions. There were no substantial state- or district-wide losses.
This database details those persons enumerated in the Slave Schedule of the 1860 United States Federal Census, the Eighth Census of the United States. In addition, the names of those listed on the slave schedule are linked to the actual images of the 1860 Federal Census, copied from the National Archives and Records Administration microfilm, M653, 1438 rolls. (If you do not initially find the name on the page that you are linked to, try a few pages forward or backward, as sometimes different pages had the same page number.)
Slaves were enumerated separately during the 1850 and 1860 censuses, though, unfortunately, most schedules do not provide personal names. In most cases, individuals were not named but were simply numbered and can be distinguished only by age, sex, and color; the names of owners are recorded. However, some enumerators listed the given names of slaves, particularly those over one hundred years of age. These names are generally found in the "name of slave owners" column. Other questions asked include whether a fugitive from the state (meaning if the slave had fled and not returned); number manumitted (or freed); whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, or idiotic; and number of slave houses.
Printable Blank
1860 Slave Schedule
Sometimes the listings for large slaveholdings appear to take the form of family groupings, but in most cases slaves are listed from eldest to youngest with no apparent effort to portray family structure. In any event, the slave schedules themselves almost never provide conclusive evidence for the presence of a specific slave in the household or plantation of a particular slaveholder. At best, a census slave schedule can provide supporting evidence for a hypothesis derived from other sources.
The slave schedule is especially useful for researchers who are seeking information about their slaveholding ancestors. This is because of the specific information it provides about their holdings and other information you can draw from it. For example, the number of slaves enumerated under an owner could help you determine if he had a plantation or not, and if so, what size it was.
The official enumeration day of the 1860 census was 1 June 1860. All questions asked were supposed to refer to that date. By 1860, there were a total of thirty-three states in the Union, with Minnesota and Oregon being the latest editions. There were no substantial state- or district-wide losses.
US 1860 Slave Schedule
This Census details those persons enumerated in the Slave Schedule of the 1860 United States Federal Census, the Eighth Census of the United States. In addition, the names of those listed on the slave schedule are linked to the actual images of the 1860 Federal Census, copied from the National Archives and Records Administration microfilm, M653, 1438 rolls. (If you do not initially find the name on the page that you are linked to, try a few pages forward or backward, as sometimes different pages had the same page number.)
Slaves were enumerated separately during the 1850 and 1860 censuses, though, unfortunately, most schedules do not provide personal names. In most cases, individuals were not named but were simply numbered and can be distinguished only by age, sex, and color; the names of owners are recorded. However, some enumerators listed the given names of slaves, particularly those over one hundred years of age. These names are generally found in the "name of slave owners" column. Other questions asked include whether a fugitive from the state (meaning if the slave had fled and not returned); number manumitted (or freed); whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, or idiotic; and number of slave houses.
Sometimes the listings for large slaveholdings appear to take the form of family groupings, but in most cases slaves are listed from eldest to youngest with no apparent effort to portray family structure. In any event, the slave schedules themselves almost never provide conclusive evidence for the presence of a specific slave in the household or plantation of a particular slaveholder. At best, a census slave schedule can provide supporting evidence for a hypothesis derived from other sources.
The slave schedule is especially useful for researchers who are seeking information about their slaveholding ancestors. This is because of the specific information it provides about their holdings and other information you can draw from it. For example, the number of slaves enumerated under an owner could help you determine if he had a plantation or not, and if so, what size it was.
Frequently overlooked by family historians, mortality schedules comprise a particularly interesting group of records. Mortality schedules are essentially nationwide, state-by-state death registers that predate the recording of vital statistics in most states. While deaths are under-reported, the mortality schedules remain an invaluable source of information. By using these schedules to document death dates and family members, it is possible to follow up with focused searches in obituaries, mortuary records, cemeteries, and probate records. Search the Schedule Now
The 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, and 1885 censuses included inquiries about persons who had died in the twelve months immediately preceding the enumeration. Mortality schedules list deaths from 1 June through 31 May of 1849–50, 1859–60, 1869–70, 1879–80, and 1884–85. They provide nationwide, state-by-state death registers that predate the recording of vital statistics in most states. While deaths are under-reported, the mortality schedules remain an invaluable source of information.
Mortality schedules are useful for tracing and documenting genetic symptoms and diseases and verifying and documenting African American, Chinese, and Native American ancestry, although African Americans are often included, especially if they were slaves. By using these schedules to document death dates and family members, it is possible to follow up with focused searches in obituaries, mortuary records, cemeteries, and probate records. They can also provide clues to migration points and supplement information in population schedules.
Mortality schedules asked for the deceased’s name, sex, age, color (white, black, mulatto), whether widowed, place of birth (state, territory, or country), month in which the death occurred, profession/occupation/trade, disease or cause of death, and number of days ill. In 1870, parents’ birthplaces was added. In 1880, the place where a disease was contracted and how long the deceased person was a citizen or resident of the area were included (fractions mean months when less than one year).
Before the National Archives was established in 1934, the federal government offered the manuscripts of the mortality schedules to the respective states. Those schedules not accepted by the states were given to the National Library of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Copies, indexes, and printed schedules are also available in many libraries (See Table Below).
Questions asked in the mortality schedules:
Deceased's name
Sex
Age
Color (White, black, mulatto)
Whether widowed
Place of birth (state, territory, or country)
Month in which the death occurred
Profession, occupation, or trade
Disease or cause of death
Number of days ill
Parents' birthplaces (added in 1870)
Place where disease was contracted and how long the deceased was a resident of the area (added in 1880)
Revolutionary War pensioners were recorded on the reverse (verso) of each page of the 1840 population schedules. It is easy to miss these names, especially in parts of the United States where few or no slaves were recorded. (Slaves were also recorded on the verso of the schedules.) Also, many elderly veterans or their widows were living in the households of married daughters or grandchildren who had different surnames or who lived in places not yet associated with the family. By government order, the names of these pensioners were also published in a volume called A Census of Pensioners for Revolutionary or Military Services (1841, various years. Reprint. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1996). The names of some men who had received state or Congressional pensions were inadvertently included with the revolutionary war veterans. The Genealogical Society of Utah indexed the volume in A General Index to a Census of Pensioners . . . 1840 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1965). These volumes are available in most research libraries. Figure 5-7 is the pensioner’s list for Maine.
Each entry shows the name of a Union veteran of the Civil War; name of his widow, if appropriate; veteran’s rank, company, regiment, or vessel; dates of enlistment and discharge and length or service in years, months, and days; post office address; nature of any disability; and remarks (figure 5-8). In some areas, Confederate veterans were mistakenly listed as well.
Unlike the other census records described in this chapter, these schedules are part of the Records of the Veterans Administration (Record Group 15). They are discussed in Evangeline Thurber, “The 1890 Census Records of the Veterans of the Union Army,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 34 (March 1946): 7–9. Printed indexes are available for some of the 1890 census.
Veterans schedules can be used to verify military service and to identify the specific military unit in which a person served. A search of the state where an individual lived in 1890 may yield enough identifying information to follow up in service and pension records at the National Archives; it can often trace Civil War veterans to their places of origin. The 1890 veterans schedules have been indexed for every state for which schedules are extant (except Pennsylvania).
The first census of manufacturers was taken in 1810. The returns were incomplete, and most of the schedules have been lost except for the few bound with the population schedules. Surviving 1810 manufacturers schedules are listed in appendix IX of Katherine H. Davidson and Charlotte M. Ashby, comps., Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Bureau of the Census, Preliminary Inventory 161 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, 1964).
The second census of manufacturers, taken in 1820, tabulated the owner’s name, the location of the establishment, the number of employees, kind and quantity of machinery, capital invested, articles manufactured, annual production, and general remarks on the business and demand for its products. The schedules have been arranged alphabetically by county within each state to make research easier. The originals, deposited in the National Archives (Record Group 29), have been microfilmed with an index on each roll (M279, twenty-seven rolls). The Southeast, New England, Central Plains, and Mid-Atlantic regional archives of the National Archives have copies of the series. These indexes have been compiled and printed as Indexes to Manufacturers’ Census of 1820: An Edited Printing of the Original Indexes and Information (Reprint. Knightstown, Ind.: Bookmark, n.d.).
No manufacturers schedule was compiled for the 1830 census. The 1840 schedules included only statistical information. Except for a few aggregate tables, nothing remains of these tallies.
From 1850 to 1870, the manufacturers schedule was called the “industry schedule.” The purpose was to collect information about manufacturing, mining, fisheries, and mercantile, commercial, and trading businesses with an annual gross product of $500 or more. For each census year ending on 1 June, the enumerators recorded the name of the company or the owner; kind of business; amount of capital invested; and quantity and value of materials, labor, machinery, and products. Some of the regional archives of the National Archives have microfilm copies of the schedules for the specific states served by the region.
In 1880, the census reverted to the title “manufacturer’s schedule.” Special agents recorded industrial information for certain large industries and in cities of more than 8,000 inhabitants. These schedules are not now extant. However, the regular enumerators did continue to collect information on general industry schedules for twelve industries, and these schedules survive for some states. The manufacturer’s schedules for later years were destroyed by Congressional order. See table 5-3 for the locations of extant schedules.
Agriculture schedules are little known and rarely used by genealogists. They are scattered among a variety of archives in which they were deposited by the National Archives and Records Service. Most are not indexed, and only a few had been microfilmed until recently, when the National Archives asked that copies be returned for historical research. The schedules for 1890 were destroyed by fire, and those for 1900 and 1910 were destroyed by Congressional order.
Research Tips For Agriculture Schedules
Agriculture censuses can be used to fill gaps when land and tax records are missing or incomplete; to distinguish between people with the same names; to document land holdings of[p.130] ancestors with suitable follow-up in deeds, mortgages, tax rolls, and probate inventories; to verify and document black sharecroppers and white overseers who may not appear in other records; to identify free black men and their property holdings; and to trace their movements and economic growth.
Social statistics schedules compiled from 1850 to 1880 contain three items of specific interest for the genealogist: (1) The schedules list cemetery facilities within city boundaries, including maps with cemeteries marked; names, addresses, and general description of all cemeteries; procedures for internment; cemeteries no longer functioning; and the reasons for their closing. (2) The schedules also list trade societies, lodges, clubs, and other groups with addresses, major branches, names of executive officers, and statistics showing members, meetings, and financial worth. The 1880 schedules were printed by the Government Printing Office, and most government document sections of public and university libraries have them. (3) The schedules list churches with a brief history, a statement of doctrine and policy, and a statistical summary of membership by county. The schedules for 1850 through 1900 are not listed in Davidson and Ashby, Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Bureau of the Census. Those for 1906, 1916, and 1926 are printed; the originals were destroyed by order of Congress. Church records are especially helpful for researching immigrants, and the census of social statistics is a finding tool to locate the records of a specific group. See table 5-3 for the locations of extant schedules.
Special schedules are valuable because they document the lives of small businessmen and merchants who may not appear in land records. If population schedules give manufacturing occupations connected with industry, search the manufacturing schedules for more clues. It is also possible to trace the involvement of an individual in a fraternal club, trade society, or other social group
