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Ethnic Censuses & Census Substitutes

Census Substitutes l African-American l Native-American l Reconstructed 1790 Census

In the absence of official census records, genealogists and historians have shown ingenuity in filling the resulting gaps. An interesting 1776 census was compiled from oaths of allegiance ordered by the colonial government of Maryland. Several of the lists are arranged in family units, with ages given for each person. The pattern was later used for U.S. federal schedules. In 1778, a second census tallied those who opposed the American Revolution. Included on this second list are Quakers, Mennonites, and others who refused to take oaths, as well as some remaining Tories. Tax lists often make acceptable substitutes for missing censuses.

Census Substitutes

School Censuses

Traditionally, school censuses have been taken to insure that local facilities and teachers are adequate and to plan for future appropriations. These schedules count the children of school age. Some lists are in family units with parents’ names included. Some list children with ages only.

Constable’S or Sheriff’S Census

The constable or sheriff’s census (also called a police census) actually had little to do with law enforcement; but the local constable, often under the eye of the sheriff, was the official most often used to assemble data required for administrative decisions. For example, in 1769–1770, the governor of Connecticut required an enumeration of “how many parsons partayn to ech family, and how many boshels of wheat, and of Indian corne, ech famyly hath.”

Another sheriff’s census was taken to the Committee of Safety and Relief, 16 April 1814, to account for settlers on the Niagara Frontier (western New York) who were “victimized during the War of 1812.” Money was raised in Albany by voluntary donation to provide aid for these settlers.

Pennsylvania’s tax assessors took septennial (every seven years) censuses from 1763 to 1807, listing taxable inhabitants by township. Occasionally, the list covered males age sixteen to forty-five only, thus making a militia census. Tax assessors were exempt along with teachers, physicians, provincial and state government leaders, militia captains, and others. Their names were not included on the same lists. Exempt status was set by law.

Church/Civil Censuses

In areas where a church was established and supported by the civil government, enumerating the population was often the responsibility of church officials. The most common examples come from New England, but others can be found among church-wardens’ records in Virginia and South Carolina.

US 1885 Census

As a more modern example, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints enumerated its members in Pottawatomie, Iowa, as part of the Iowa state census ordered in 1847 for all residents. These church schedules contain the standard information asked for in the Iowa tally but also include wagons, guns, number of family members ill, aged, or infirm, and oxen/cattle/horses. These data suggest a dual function for the census to comply with the Iowa law and to prepare for transporting a large body of people westward, a project even then under way (figure 5-12). Emigrating companies were enumerated in tens and hundreds before they embarked the organization under which they traveled to Utah.

Other censuses were taken in Utah in 1852 and 1856. These tallies are valuable because many people did not survive the trek across the Great Plains and the Rockies; comparing the two censuses helps clarify mortality figures. Many of the companies that Brigham Young sent to colonize the Mormon Corridor before 1872 (Rocky Mountain valleys stretching from Mexico to Canada and from Las Vegas to San Bernardino, California) made summaries of individuals, professions, states of health, wagons, cattle, and weapons. Many of these schedules are among the collections of the LDS Church Historical Department, 50 North West Temple, Salt Lake City, UT 84150. More widely known are the twentieth-century census cards (1914 to 1960), which enumerate all LDS families in organized wards. They are available for research on microfilm at the Genealogical Society of Utah.

Settlers Census

Still another example is the Holland Land Company Census of 1806 (figure 5-14). The Holland Land Company had great difficulty getting payments from settlers on their lands in central and western New York. Its census assessed the resources of these settlers and, hence, their ability to pay. The 1806 data is especially valuable, as many of these people moved on before the 1810 federal census. For some, it is the only record of their stop in New York City.

Importance of Local Censuses

Local censuses can be useful in discovering the names of children who are listed in pre-1850 census schedules by age groupings only. Similarly, these censuses may be used to determine the number living in a household and compared with birth and death records. They may also verify specific residences of individuals who moved too rapidly to be recorded in other sources; and they may identify neighbors and other community members whose records can provide additional clues for tracing families and individuals back in time. Comparing local census schedules with tax records and other property sources is often one of the best ways to distinguish individuals of the same or similar names..

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.

Reconstructed 1790 Census

Census Schedules Are Extant For Only Two-Thirds of the Thirteen States Originally Covered in the 1790 Census. Concerned Genealogists Have Reconstructed Substitute Schedules For the Missing States Using Tax Lists and Following the Pattern Set by the Bureau of the Census in Bureau of the Census Records of State Enumerations, 1782–1785 (1908. Reprint. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1970).

These Substitutes For 1790 Schedules Include

Delaware: Reconstructed 1790 census of Delaware by Leon De Valinger (Author).
Georgia: Some Early Tax Digests of Georgia by Ruth Blair (Author). . Also available are several volumes of printed land lotteries, 1805 to 1820, available in most research libraries, and a pamphlet which describes the state’s head-right (land bounty for attracting new settlers) and lottery system, including eligibility qualifications. This pamphlet is available upon request from the Georgia Department of Archives and History, 330 Capitol Avenue S.W., Atlanta, GA 30334. Lotteries include precise description of qualifications for land ownership for each person drawing land in specific counties created as a result of the land awards.
Kentucky: "First Census" of Kentucky, 1790 by Charles B. Heinemann (Author). The first two federal censuses of Kentucky no longer exist; therefore, this "first census" of 1790 was developed from tax lists rather than population schedules. The territory covered includes the nine counties that comprised the entire State of Kentucky in 1790. Following the names of each of the 9,000 taxpayers are the name of the county of residence and the date of the return. At the rear of the book are the 1787 and 1788 tax lists for Fayette County, reproduced from another source.
New Jersey: NEW JERSEY IN 1793 by James S. Norton (Author). Based on military census lists and ratables. Revolutionary Census of New Jersey: An Index, Based on Rateables, of the Inhabitants of New Jersey During the Period of the American Revolution by Kenn Stryer-Rodda (Author). The Library of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, D.C., has twenty-four microfilm rolls of New Jersey tax lists for 1783 which can also substitute for 1790 data.
Tennessee: Early East Tennessee Taxpayers by Pollyanna Creekmore (Author). Originally printed in East Tennessee Historical Society Publications beginning in 1951. Index to Early East Tennessee Tax Lists by Sistler, Byron, and Barbara Sistler.
Virginia: Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790: Records of the State Enumerations, 1782 to 1785: Virginia by United States Bureau of the Census (Author). Virginia Tax Payers, 1782-87, Other Than Those Published by the United States by Augusta B. Fothergill (Author), John Mark Naugle (Author); The 1787 Census of Virginia. by Augusta B. Fothergill (Author), John Mark Naugle (Author)

Because substitutes for the 1790 census have been so useful, numerous reconstructions of other missing schedules are also under way. Tax lists, oaths of allegiance, land entities, militia lists, petitions, road records, and other sources, though never as complete as censuses, can go far toward filling the gaps left by lost or destroyed census schedules.

In order to use substitutes effectively, it is important to know what specific categories of people are included in each source and which ones were left out. Most potential census substitutes are described in detail in other chapters of this book, and some can be found printed with indexes. Still other sources have been stored, and sometimes forgotten, in various state archives, courthouses, and historical agencies.

African American Census Schedules

US 1850 Slave Schedule

From about 1830 on, northern cities increasingly felt the need to monitor African Americans who were moving from the South seeking freedom and work. In 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, Ohio called for the number and names of African Americans who had immigrated to Ohio from other states since 1 March 1861, their current township of residence, and their state of origin. Thirteen counties in southeastern Ohio submitted schedules. Hamilton County refused because the numbers were too great and its staff too limited.

Household censuses of Philadelphia’s African American population were taken in 1838 and 1856 by the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and in 1847 by the Society of Friends. In addition to the variables listed in the federal census, the records [p.137] of 11,600 households contain information describing membership in church, beneficial, and temperance societies; income, education level, and school attendance; house, ground, and water rent; how freedom was acquired; and the amount of property brought to Pennsylvania. These superb records constitute the most detailed information we have describing any population group in the mid-nineteenth century; they are being computer-processed as part of an urban-immigrant study of African Americans in Philadelphia conducted by Temple University.

The National Archives has issued a separate list of “Free Black Heads of Families in the First Census of the U.S. 1790” as Special List 34. This compilation by Debra L. Newman is available free upon request from the National Archives. An expanded version for New York is Alice Eichholz and James M. Rose, comps., Free Black Heads of Households in the New York State Federal Census 1790–1830, Gale Genealogy and Local History Series, vol. 14 (Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1981).

1850-1885 Federal Mortality Schedule

In some years, separate censuses of Native Americans were taken by the federal government and the Bureau of Indian [p.141]Affairs. While some early Native American populations were tabulated by missionary priests and colonial authorities, specific examples of such tallies have not been located.

The 1860 and 1870 federal censuses noted only Native Americans living in non-Native American households. Native Americans who were not taxed (living on reservations) and members of nomad tribes in unsettled territories were not counted. It is safe to say that those enumerations of Native Americans made before 1880 are incomplete and, frequently, inaccurate. Additionally, in many instances, Native American origins are not indicated.
1880 Native American Census

In 1880, a special enumeration was taken of Native Americans living near military reservations in the Dakota and Washington territories and the state of California. The census included the name of the tribe, the reservation, the agency, and the nearest post office; the number living in the household with a description of the dwelling; the Native American name with English translation for each family member; relationship to head of household; martial and tribal status; and occupation, health, education, land ownership, and source of sustenance. Some enumerators also added customs and lifestyle data.

The “1880 Census of Indians, Not-Taxed” is in four volumes in National Archives Record Group 29. Volumes 1 and 2 cover Fort Simcoe, Washington, and Tulalip, Washington Territory. Volume 3 covers Fort Yates, Dakota Territory, and volume 4 covers California.
1885–1940 Native American Censuses

The 1885 to 1940 Indian census rolls are on National Archives microfilm M-595 (692 rolls). Census enumerations were taken regularly, though not annually, by Indian agents on each reservation from 1885 to 1942. Throughout these rolls are scattered letters written by agents describing why returns were not taken with instructions to enumerators on how to take the census. Vital records are noted in the age column or appended in separate lists.

In 1978, E. Kay Kirkham, Field Operations, Genealogical Society of Utah, updated and corrected the National Archives listing of Native American bands and tribes in these 692 microfilm rolls. He compiled an index for all tribes and bands, with Indian agency, National Archives reel number, and [p.142]Genealogical Society of Utah call number. Tribes are found under several agencies during the period covered by the census, so it is important to study the history of the tribe before beginning research. Copies of this register are available in the Family History Library’s American Reference area. Copies can be made on request for use in family history centers to access the lists more easily. There is no master name index to the Native Americans themselves.

Three copies of the census were made: one for the federal government in Washington (now transferred to the National Archives); a second for the Superintendent at Indian Affairs (Bureau of Indian Affairs); and a third for the Indian agency. Many Bureau of Indian Affairs copies were destroyed. Some local copies are still in agencies’ possession or have been transferred to National Archives regional archives. For further information on Native American research, see chapter 14, Tracking Native American Family History.
1898–1906 Indian Census Cards Index

The Indian Census Cards Index was compiled by the Dawes Commission to verify individual rights to tribal allotments for the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole). To search this index, send the name of the tribe, name of the individual, approximate date of birth or death, and location to the Director, National Archives—Southwest Region, Box 6216, Fort Worth, TX 76115. Copies of the index are available from the Five Civilized Tribes Center, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Muskogee Agency, Fourth Floor, Federal Building, Muskogee, OK 74401, and through the Family History Library.

In the 1910 census, a special Indian schedule is sometimes found at the end of regular population schedules for some counties. For example, NV 1910 lists tribe, tribe of father, tribe of mother, proportion of Native American blood, and number of times married.
1910–1939 Indian School Census

The Bureau of Indian Affairs took separate Indian school censuses from 1910 to 1939. These include names of all children between six and eighteen years of age, sex, tribe, degree of Native American blood, distance from home to the school, parent or guardian, and attendance during the year. Some schedules are available on microfilm, but most are still in original form in the Federal Records Center for the region where the tribe was located. Unlike white census records, these often include the mother’s surname.

Native American census records can be used to identify relationships, mothers’ full names, aliases, ancestral rights, and inheritances. These census records, however, apply only to Native Americans registered with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. [p.143] Many Native American families never enrolled with the government. These persons are recorded in the regular census schedules, usually without evidence of their Native American ties.

Other miscellaneous records document Native American populations. Supplementary rolls list births, deaths, and sometimes marriages. Deduction rolls give deaths or removals from the jurisdiction. Additional rolls include arrivals and births. Allotment rolls list those entitled to payment and the payments received. .