Census Forms and Thanks to ETGS Seminar Attendees

I had a wonderful time presenting at the East Texas Genealogical Society (ETGS) Beginner's Workshop on Saturday. The group was interested and shared some good stories. We had attendees all the way from Irving (about 110 miles) and from several counties surrounding Smith County. Some were brand new to genealogical research and some experienced researchers came to learn new tips. And the ETGS group always has tempting snacks so no one went hungry.

We talked about census records and extraction forms and using tools like spreadsheets or word processors to help organize data for analysis. We also talked about organization and some of the logs needed to know what you've already done and what you need to do next. Here are some links for those forms for those who are not using tools built in to their genealogy programs:

U.S. National Archives Forms — census and many other forms

FamilySearch Wiki Research Forms — census worksheets, timelines, cemetery logs, research logs, correspondence logs, pedigree charts, family group sheets, research calendars and logs, and many, many more U.S., UK, and Canadian forms (also links to Ancestry.com and FamilyTreeMagazine.com)

Ancestry.com Census Forms — U.S. populations schedules and slave schedules, U.K., and Canadian forms

Ancestral Findings Free Census Forms — U.S. and UK

Family Tree Magazine Census Forms — U.S. population schedule

Census Mate (links to Google Sites — downloadable forms requires registration

Census Tools / Census Tracker — for a small fee the author provides Excel spreadsheets that allow data entry of extracted census information and some other activities

An Internet search for "census extraction forms" will result in many more links if one of the above links don't provide the desired results.

Don't forget that anyone can create their own form using a word processor or a spreadsheet. Even a plain text file can be used and a constant width font will allow columns to be lined up using tabs.

Some important tips on using census records:

• obtain all census records for the focus person
  
• correlate the information from each census on a form or in a table
  
• remember the informant for the census enumerations is unidentified for most years so it can be difficult to evaluate the accuracy of the information provided
  
• correlate evidence from other records with the census data to form more accurate theories
  
• use the instructions given to the census enumerators to properly analyze the census data
  

Important resources:
“Census of Population and Housing.” U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html : 2013. Freely downloadable PDFs of the statistical compendiums for each census since 1790, special collections and reports, and Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses from 1790 to 2000 (publ. 2012).

Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) Website:
https://usa.ipums.org/usa/ – Home Page
https://usa.ipums.org/usa/voliii/tEnumForm.shtml – 1850–2011 Enumerator Instructions
https://usa.ipums.org/usa/doc.shtml – Document Index

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To cite this blog post:
Debbie Parker Wayne, "Census Forms and Thanks to ETGS Seminar Attendees," Deb's Delvings Blog, posted 16 September 2013 (http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/ : accessed [date]).


© 2013, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, CGL, All Rights Reserved