Developing An Ancestor's Profile Through U.S. Census Records

Last April, the National Archives (NARA) released the U.S. Census of 1940 to the public, a day that genealogists and family history researchers throughout the country had been anticipating for years. You may be asking yourself why the 1940 census was still private - it had been more than 70 years since the data was recorded. 


Well, here’s the reason. Where U. S. census records are concerned, the federal government enforces what is called “The 72 Year Rule.”  What this means is that census records are not available for citizens to search through and view personal information contained in the records until 72 years (an average lifetime) after the information was gathered. Although the U. S. Census of 1940 was released to the public and is available for viewing at www.nara.gov, www.ancestry.com, www.familysearch.org, and other sites, the data contained there is not easy to navigate without an index. Because of the sheer volume of the data, census records for only a few states have been indexed. The good news is that through the efforts of paid individuals and thousands of unpaid volunteers, we are closer than ever to having indexed census record data from the U. S. Census of 1940 available for researching in all 50 states.


Poring through the rolls of the 1940 census would have helped me tremendously last week.  I had taken on the task of assisting someone in putting together her mother’s family history. But data for the states I needed to search had not been indexed, and I had to “make do” with data found in census records from previous years. As I reviewed and searched  through countless digital images of documents from several states, beginning with 1850 and ending with 1930, I began to develop visual profiles of the relatives my contact had never met, even some she never knew existed. And it was all because of small bits of personal information available on census records. It’s true. Almost everything any researcher might ever need to know about an ancestor, except for a physical description, is contained within those handwritten entries on these priceless documents. 


As I continued my review and diligently searched for more facts, census entries answered one question after another.  When was the individual born?  Where was he/she born? And who were the parents? Where were the parents born, and what language did they speak? 


But wait; that’s not all. There is so much more information contained there, information that goes well beyond the basic facts. Many of these old census records reveal how many years a couple had been married, whether they had been previously married, and if so, how many times, and how old they were when they were married the first time.  Staring out at me from these images was data that detailed a woman’s childbearing history. How many “live births” had she experienced? And what was the total number of her children who had survived childhood? Just how personal can we get here? But when one considers the importance of this information to a developing country in preventing infant mortality, these facts suddenly become much more than sad reminders of how difficult having a child really was back then. 


As I continued my research, I realized that by simply reading a line of words across a page, I could determine the dollar amount of an individual’s assets, the value of his house or farm, the occupation at which he or she was employed, and whether a child had attended school that year. Since we are a nation of immigrants, census records also provide details about when an individual immigrated to this country, if that individual has been naturalized, and if so, when the naturalization occurred. Also, I began to formulate visual images and mental impressions of people caught in a micro-moment of time, sometimes daring people who were forging life out of the elements, but always people whose lives were eternally linked together in this universe by blood, hard work, and often tears. 


I knew my contact would be pleased with what I had found. And it was because the census records of this country tell a moving story of its people, a story that consistently makes tracing one’s roots a powerful and enlightening journey.  

My Research/Writing Plan For 2011

For the 101st Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy, Jasia, at Creative Gene, has challenged genea-bloggers to write about "My genealogy research/writing plan for 2011."  Let's just say this is something like a list of New Year's Resolutions - genealogy-speaking, that is.  So here is what I have planned for next year.

My first goal is to locate the ancestors of my great-great-great-grandfather, John P. Gibson, who was born in 1799 in South Carolina.  For over ten years now, I have been unsuccessful in determining the names of his parents and his siblings.  Further examination of South Carolina,  Tennessee, and north Mississippi records is warranted, and maybe, just maybe, 2011 will be the year that my research comes together.

Secondly, I plan to load photos of gravestones in of one Holmes County cemetery on to the Find-A-Grave website. Most of the deceased buried in that cemetery are related to me through my mother's side of the family. Although, I have posted about many of these ancestors already, it is time that I share all the photos with other researchers.

Another item on my agenda is to write a follow-up story about the descendants of Robert W. Ragland/Raglin, a brother to my paternal great-great-great-grandmother.  Based on information I recently discovered during a review of the U.S. Census of 1870, Robert fathered at least four mulatto children by an unidentified female after his first wife died about 1855.  Descendants of these four children still live in several counties in Mississippi and in other places throughout the country.

Organizing my multitude of photos is neither research nor writing, but it is something that will make my research and writing much easier in 2011.  It is a task that I plan to accomplish in small segments spread out over the year. Included in the task is scanning actual photos and reorganizing photos already in digital format. Purchasing some new technology currently on my "wish list," such as an upgrade of my current edition of Photoshop, will surely make the task much easier.

Transcribing and writing about some original documents I obtained from the National Archives is a small, but vital part of my plan. Although I have previously posted details from some of these documents, there is still a wealth of information in them that provides leads for additional research on my paternal side of the family.  Additionally, I want to explore and photograph tombstones in several Mississippi cemeteries, including two in Holmes County and another in a remote part of southwest Mississippi. 

Now that I have these tasks in writing, it makes it much easier to decide where to begin.  And as we family researchers all know, there really is no ending.....there is just more research to do.