Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Census information

This morning I attended a workshop on using the U.S. census site. Although family historians use the census it is almost exclusively the historical census. There are a few items on today's census site that you may useful.

Under People & Households there is a link to their Genealogy Page. There isn't alot of info but there is a significant little tidbit. For $65.00 they will do an Age Search: that is, they will search the confidential records from the Federal population censuses of 1910 to 2000 and issue an official transcript of the results.

If you have a missing person and you are waiting every ten years for the next census to come out to see where they were this could be helpful.

Also, they have a gazetteer under Geography. It will list all the places in the census. Select a year and a state.

Even better are the Maps. I had an obit with the place name, Hilda, SC. I wondered where the town was located. Again, under Geography, click Maps; click related sites; click U.S. Gazetteer. At this point search for: Hilda, SC. Do you see the population stats? Now Browse a Tiger Map of the area. Redraw the map adding cities and you find that the little town of Hilda is near Barnwell, SC.

This is better than googling the town because I didn't have to click a zillion sites to find a map I could understand.

While you are on the census site, just for fun, look at the Facts For Features under Newsroom. It is fun, miscellaneous info. It will be amusing!!

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