The Coded Census: Deciphering US Census

Learn the fascinating journey of US census data from the census planning phase to the final tabulation.

Census enumerations offer invaluable snapshots of families, but like any record, can lead researchers astray. Names may be mangled, ages fudged, or individuals or families be enumerated twice – or not at all. This entertaining presentation follows a Norwegian immigrant family forward and backward in time to untangle the makeup of a 1910 Minnesota family.

Just who was creating the documents genealogists typically turn to first? What rules did they follow? How long did they have to complete their job? How big is an enumeration district? These questions, and more, probably occur to anyone doing extensive research in the U.S. Census reports. This talk reviews the staffing, training, search for accuracy, penalties for non-cooperation, and bureaucracy of the U.S. Census from 1790 through 1950.

Ready to explore the newly released 1950 U.S. Census records? MyHeritage's free Census Helper™ tool is the perfect place to start. Uri Gonen, SVP Product Manager at MyHeritage, will introduce you to this handy tool he developed and show you how to use it to organize and focus your census research.

The 1950 census is exciting because it may include your great grandparents, grandparents, parents and perhaps even you! It will provide opportunities to confirm some of what we already know and clues for new research. Released just days ago, now is the perfect time to begin making discoveries. Learn from Lisa Louise Cooke what you need to know about this new census.

The 1921 UK Census was released earlier this year. Come explore what is new and different in this census. Learn how to search the indexed records, to understand the results, and how to take what you learn about your family further.

For over a year we've met monthly and are now ready to meet weekly in prep for the release of the 1950 US Federal Census. You can play catch up by joining Cousin Russ and Myrt and discover strategies for finding ancestors in an unindexed image collection.

The National Census were undertaken in Ireland every ten years from 1821 although many only have fragments remaining. The webinar will examine what remains for those years where only fragments exist and look at examples that help to build a family tree, along with the differences in the information gathered. We’ll examine the different type of returns for the Census of 1901 and 1911, such as for lunatic asylums, army barracks and prisons and examples of each of these will be shown. These records can be difficult to pin down and we will cover practical tips to help you find them. The different census forms provided interesting additional background information about the type of home and outbuildings a householder had and help to build a picture of their lives. Tips on search techniques will help to ensure you can find your ancestor and we’ll look at why you might struggle to find them or their place of residence in the census. Census Search Forms are a useful census substitute for the 1841 and 1851 Census records that were used when applying for the Old Age Pension and we will look at different examples that can expand your family tree.

Most genealogists are aware the 1890 federal census was destroyed by fire in 1921. Learn the story behind this historical and genealogical tragedy and how to research around the loss of that precious record.