Tuesday's Tip - Inputting Data on the 1790 US Census

1790 U.S. Federal Census

To continue on with last week's post, I created an "inputable" 1790 census form.  Why 1790 after last week's 1900 form?  Well, honestly it's the end of the school year so everything with my boys is coming to a head at once and the earlier censuses are a bit less complex. I figured that I'd start from the beginning and continue on.

A bit of a disclaimer...none of my ancestors were in the United States for the first 3 or 4 censuses.  We are all relatively new (no D.A.R. applications here!).  My father's side came over during the very late 19th century and my mom's came during the Potato Famine or just after.  So I suppose my point is, I haven't used the earliest censuses much.  I created the form to be as close to the original census as possible, but with the earlier censuses they were not on pre-printed forms.

In the 1790 census (and others I would expect, although I won't find out until I create and/or use the forms!) the census takers were "assistants to the Marshal" and wrote their headings/instructions out at the top of the forms themselves.  In fact in some of the forms you will come across there are no instructions so you may be unable to complete the top portion of the form apart from the page number (partly due to the fact that not all of the 1790 censuses are still in existence).

I checked out several different locales in the 1790 census and some were enumerated in different years so at the top portion you will see that the sheet is "subscribed by me this _____ day of_____ Domini 1790/91/92" to cover the years that your census may have been enumerated.  Just delete the numbers that don't apply!

If you see any improvements that could be made on the form, or if you've come across another 1790 form that has something this one does not, please send me the link and I will do my best to adjust the spreadsheet!  Again, the cells are locked with the exception of the ones you would be looking to input data into so the form doesn't get erased, so type away and save to your heart's content!

Let me know if there are any problems viewing and/or downloading the file so I can repair it for others to use (the download works from my computers at home and I'm still feeling my way around Google Docs).  If you prefer I can also email the from to you.  As with the last form when you view it in Google Docs it has more pages than it will when you download it.  This one looks like a three page form with the first page being essentially blank, but when you download it, it will be a one page form.  Go figure!