Building a Family Tree Using Census Records

A fascinating way to learn about the history of your family is to build a family tree, and census records are a great place to start gathering information.

The Federal Population Census is an accounting of individuals in the United States that has been conducted since 1790 and repeated every 10 years. Initially, the only names recorded were those who were the Head of Household for the family, although other family members were listed as numbers within specific age groups. Beginning in 1850, however, the Census requested details for every family member; including names, ages, the country of birth, the state of birth, year of immigration, occupations, marriage statistics, addresses and parent birthplace. Having this data can provide invaluable information to begin building your family tree.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Kalamazoo Valley Genealogical

The Kalamazoo Valley Genealogical Society website also provides a Kalamazoo County cemetery list and location map. In addition, their website includes cemetery maps and listing for the County s largest cemeteries, Mountain Home and Riverside. The website kalamazoogenealogy.com maintains a Kalamazoo County cemetery burial listing that is arranged alphabetically: The City of Kalamazoo s website offers detailed section maps for Riverside Cemetery: The Vicksburg Historical Society maintains online headstone transcriptions for Vicksburg Cemetery and Gourdneck Prairie Cemetery. Findagrave.com also holds a large number of Kalamazoo County burials and photographs. Church Records: The Kalamazoo Public Library s collection of 3 x 5 vital records cards has been scanned by kalamazoogenealogy.com and is available at The database includes church records from First Baptist, First Methodist Episcopal, First Reformed, Gull Prairie Presbyterian (Richland), Peoples/First Unitarian
Read more

How taking a home genetics test could help catch a murderer

Specialists are using public-access DNA databases to track down violent criminals such as the notorious Golden State Killer. But the technique raises a host of legal and ethical questions DNA sleuth CeCe Moore recalls the moment that the pieces came together, in May, in the hunt for her first suspected killer – the man now thought to be responsible for the brutal 1987 murders of a young Canadian couple on a trip to Seattle. While Moore is used to uncovering secrets – she’s helped hundreds of adult adoptees to identify their biological parents – finding someone who might be guilty of murder was shocking. “It is hard to even put into words. It was a very surreal feeling,” she says. Moore, a genetic genealogist known in the US as an expert on the PBS television series Finding Your Roots, runs DNA Detectives, a Facebook group of 100,000-plus members, which helps people find their biological parents. sourse
Read more