In an earlier post, I had mentioned briefly about the 1890 census record being in pieces. For those who do not know, the Eleventh United States Census (or the 1890 census) was destroyed in a fire in the basement of the Commerce Building in Washington D.C. 1921. If you were doing family research prior to that year, you were lucky. This is what you would have seen:
address
number of families in house
number of persons in house
names
whether a soldier, sailor or marine (during the American Civil War), (whether Union
or Confederate), or widow of such person
relationship to head of family
race, described as white, black, mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian
sex
age
marital status
married within the year
mother of how many children, and number now living
place of birth of person, and their father and mother
if foreign-born, number of years in US
whether naturalized
whether naturalization papers have been taken out
profession, trade or occupation
months unemployed during census year
ability to read and write
ability to speak English, and, if unable, language or dialect spoken
whether suffering from acute or chronic disease, with name of disease and length of time afflicted
whether defective in mind, sight, hearing or speech, or whether crippled, maimed or deformed, with name of defect
whether a prisoner, convict, homeless child, or pauper
home rented, or owned by head or member of family, and, if owned, whether free from mortgage
whether farm is rented, or owned by head or member of family; if owned, whether free from mortgage; if rented, post office box of owner.
The 1890 census was the first to use Herman Hollerith's methods of data compiling. This data used a punched method, which was entered on a reader that could tabulate it. This particular method was said to reduce the census counting 8:1. For its time, it was very state of the art.
The original data for the 1890 census is not available. The public was informed that 25% of the materials were presumed destroyed and 50% were destroyed by smoke and water. This led to a public outcry for a permanent National Archives.
Even more records were destroyed when in 1932, the Chief Clerk of the Bureau of the Census gave the Librarian of Congress a list of papers to be eradicated, including the 1890 census schedules. The Bureau asked the Librarian to put aside any records deemed historical, and the census records were not designated to be saved. Congress authorized that list of records to be destroyed in 1933 and the rest in 1934-35.
The other two census reports that are lost are the 1800 and 1810 enumerations.
How could anyone deem any census record not worthy of saving? This particular census record is a major setback for a great deal many people trying to locate family members. Hopefully this will never happen again with any census records. With all the technology we have now, I doubt that would ever happen.
Anyway, good luck with your researching!
~Shasta
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