You wouldn't be the only one that had this question. I mean we all know they exist. We've heard about them, perhaps in news, parents, grandparents, in history books, but if you've never had to do one you, or if you are new to genealogy you may not know what a gem they really are.
First a little history lesson. The United States Federal Census was inaugurated and first conducted in 1790. There had been census' taken prior to this ones by states, however this was the first one taken after the Constitution's Ratification. The Census' purpose is to get a count of the number of people living the counties in the States that were now part of the newly made United States. The first count of the Census was listed at 3,929,326 population (this was taken in August of 1790) The Census was done every ten years and the first six census records (1790 - 1840) only named the head of household and listed the number of people living in the household. This would also include slaves. The 1850 census was a ground breaker as it was the first Federal Census to name the members of the household and their relationship to the head of the household. If you are a genealogist you can attest to the major headache that this saves when searching for ancestors and their relations.
1850 Census for Springfield Illinois, Abraham Lincoln
I found it only fitting to make the 1850 census my first in my Census series, where I will help you break down each decades census information to help you on your family history research. Above you will see an page from the Springfield, Illinois 1850 census. This is an actual microfilm of the original form taken on November 7th, 1850, so these people were actually real people. The family we will focus on will be that of Abraham Lincoln (there is an arrow drawn towards his name). Yes, this is the census page for our 16th President (prior to his election in 1860).
This census is pretty straight forward. At the top of the document you see where the location is. The Free Inhabitants (this means people that aren't slaves. The sad fact that slaves were considered property of he people who owned them {that word leaves a bad taste in my mouth}. There were freed African American people in the North however and this differentiated from those who were considered free and those who were considered slaves.
To continue you can see that this census is from the town/city of Springfield, in the county of Sangamon, in the state of Illinois was done on the 7th of November 1850 by T. Billoong
The next part I will bring your attention too is the section directly below it. This is a break down of the information they are collecting in this census. You will see 13 different sections. The first two are the numbers they go by to indicate the dwelling number according to visitation (later they would changed to addresses of the families) and the family number according to visitation. Remember that back in the 1800's it wasn't uncommon for two or more families to live in the same home. Hence, the number breakdown. The census taker would mark down the number of the dwelling, so the first home would be listed at 1 and if there were two families in the same home the dwelling number would remain 1 and the family numbers would be listed as 1 amd 2.
The next five lines go into the description of the family groups. The first person listed is generally the father, head of the family, main source of money, following him will be his wife and children generally in descending age (for children) and then any servants or workers (in later census records they would require relation to the head of household and even birth month and year). After each name you will find a brief description about them i.e. their age, race, and occupation.
After this section you will come to a value of the real estate owned by the head of household followed by the location of birth of the people in the census (State/Country). The final four sections are very brief and usually only contain checkmarks. They ask if a couple had been married during the year of the census, if anyone attended school within the year (it wasn't unusual the people went unschooled), if anyone over the age of 20 couldn't read or write, and whether each person was deaf/blind/insane/pauper/or convict.
Now we get to the fun part. I clipped a portion of the census to show Mr. Lincoln's family and one other family. So let's break this down and pretend that Mr. Lincoln is your 4x Great Grandfather and his first child is your 3x Great Grandfather. What can you find out from this census.
Well, you can learn that Mr. Lincoln lived in Springfield, Illinois. His home was the 696 dwelling to be counted and his family was the 728 family in Springfield, Illinois. Mr. Lincoln was 40 years old at the time of this census, he is a male, and while the majority of census records listed the race of the people there isn't any listed on this place so it's pretty safe to assume all of the people listed are caucasian of race. Lincoln's position was Attorney at Law, and because there isn't a Value of Real Estate listed the family more than likely rented their home. Lincoln was born in Kentucky, and as none of the other boxes are checked, he was married for more than a year, he hadn't attended school that year, he could read and write, and he had wasn't deaf, blind, insane, a pauper, or a convict. We can also see his family dynamic. So still going on the same rouse that he is your 4x Great Grandfather and his first child is your 3x Great Grandfather we can tell that Lincoln was married to a Mary Lincoln who was 28, female, white, and born in KY, and they had a child, named Robert Lincoln (your pretend 3x Great Grandfather) who was 7, male, and born in Illinois. And by the looks of it they had a servant named Catherine Gordon, who was 18, Female, white, and born in Ireland.
Now say you didn't have a birth date on your 3x Great Grandfather, in fact let's say you didn't know anything about him beyond his name. Well this census just provided you some critical search information. You now have a narrowed date of birth we known that Robert Lincoln is 7 on November 7th, 1850 so we know he was born around 1843 (history tells us his birthday is August 1st 1843). What other crucial search information did we learn? We learned his father's name Abraham Lincoln and his mother's first name. We also know that his father was born around 1810 (history tells us February 12, 1809) and his mother around 1822 (December 13, 1818, now this isn't uncommon to have a slip in dates like this, but it's still close enough to have an idea that it is within 5 +/- years and you can compare with other census records) . We also know that both were born in Kentucky. We also know that Lincoln was an Attorney and given the job there are most likely newspaper clippings with his name in them from that area and time.
These facts are all huge finds for a genealogist looking to trace their family lines with little information. They will help you find birth certificates or baptismal records, even marriage records and death records.
Now that I've broken down the 1850 census, a little tip, if your family group comes close to the top or bottom of a page look at the page before or after, you may also find a relation, like parent or siblings, or it could continue on to the next page still listing members of the family.
Have fun, get excited, these are the people that connect you to the past and the world. And thank you President Lincoln for being our hypothetical ancestor :D
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