| 1880 census index plugs holes 06/02/2001 By / The Dallas Morning News
The best news coming out of the National Genealogical Society's Conference
in Portland, Ore., this month was the release of the every-name index to
the 1880 census of the United States.
In 1907, the government published the 1790 census results of
Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North
Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Carolina. Now all census
records from 1790 to 1880 are indexed.
Because of the passage of the Social Security Act requiring proof of age
of Americans who lacked birth certificates, the government indexed the
1880 census for all households in which at least one person was under
the age of 11. Calculating that those individuals would be the ones
whose ages would need to be verified, the government created an index
with one card featuring households and another cross-referencing people
living with someone other than their parents.
There were many omissions from those records. The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints devoted years to creating an every-name index to
the 1880 census for the entire country. The result is undoubtedly the
most important genealogical finding aid for the United States.
Without technological advances, access to the 50million Americans on the
1880 census would not have been possible. I had a
great-great-great-grandfather who immigrated from Bavaria in the early
1840s via the port of New Orleans and made his way to St. Louis. While
he appeared in all of the city directories until the Civil War, he and
his family are not on the 1850 census. He was in St. Louis in 1860 and
in southern Illinois in 1870. By 1880 he had returned to St. Louis. His
wife had died by the time of the census, and he did not appear on the
1880 index created by the federal government.
On the computer, I was able to retrieve him. Unbeknownst to me, he had a
new wife.
The Mormon index includes the names of each person in the household
along with age, race, sex, relationship, occupation and place of
nativity.
The index consists of a set of compact discs. It sells for $49 plus $5
shipping and may be ordered from Family History Support, Family and
Church History Department, 50 East North Temple St., Salt Lake City, UT
84140-3400, or by telephone at 1-800-346-6044. It is a bargain.
Lloyd Bockstruck is supervisor of the genealogy section of the J.
Erik Jonsson Central Library. Address questions to: Family Tree, Texas
Living section, P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, TX 75265.
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