As the 2010 Census is upon us, I thought you’d like a look at how historical census statistics can help modern day family tree researchers.
I’m a statistician at heart. That’s why I can get lost for hours at the University of Virginia’s Historical Census Browser, a site with more statistical data on the federal census than you can shake a stick at.
Genealogists have traditionally used the federal census as a tool for tracking family. However, in a broader census, the census offers a statistical analysis of where our ancestors lived and how they made a living. It tracked the westward expansion and then the massing into the cities. It noted the decline of the small farm and the rise of industry.
The census takes a community’s pulse, then uses those statistics to calculate the health of the population and economy.
Digging into the Numbers
If you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and plow through numbers, you’ll be amazed at the wealth of information available on this site.
For example, in 1860 Putnam County, Missouri, the population stood at 9,207—12 of whom owned the county’s 31 slaves. In that year, Americans owned 3,950,528 slaves. 114,931 of them lived in Missouri, which ranked 11th in slaveholding. Putnam’s meager 31 speaks volumes.
In comparison, Jackson County, located 200 miles down the road, had a population of 22,913, more than twice that of Putnam. However, Jackson had 898 slaveholders and 3,944 slaves. In real percentages, this means that 17% of Jackson’s population were slaves, compared to less than one-half of one percent in Putnam.
Do these numbers reflect a telling migration pattern (Putnam’s families came from Ohio and Indiana, Jackson’s from North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia) or a larger ideological struggle?
The slave-holding difference in these two Northern Missouri counties is staggering and yet it reflects the very conflict that made Missouri one of the most hotly contested battlegrounds of the Border States. When war did break out the following spring, 66 of the 157 engagements and battles listed in the Army Register for 1861 were in Missouri.
The historical census data for these two counties is filled with clues that should, in turn, prompt further research. How did the men of these two counties respond once War came? Putnam’s young and not so young poured into the Union Army, even though they hadn’t voted for Lincoln.
The families of Jackson were torn apart when some sons fought to preserve the Nation, and others fought for its dissolution. The pro-Confederate sympathies in Jackson were so strong, in fact, that in 1863, most of the families were forced, by official order, to vacate the county.
Take a few weeks and dig down through the site. It’s interactive, in that you can generate a seemingly endless combination of statistics. And, if you’re like me, you’ll begin to see clues that are as valuable as the ones you usually find in the federal census. Let me know how you like it, okay?
