Denise Beeson, PC Genealogy Club
Perhaps you wonder why your ancestor is “lost”? Did you look at the Non-Population Schedules?
American Expansionism from 1816–1860 was across the continent. Settlers began to populate most of the Louisiana Purchase as well as head further west into California. During the President James Polk administration, America defeated the Mexicans in the Mexican American War and expanded their border from sea to shining sea referred to as “Manifest Destiny.”
The federal government was interested in looking at the “unique” economic and demographic areas of the country so it requested from the states this information about their population. The federal government intended to use the information for planning and budgeting purposes for construction of government facilities; i.e., prisons, orphanages, hospitals, etc.
The Non-Population Schedules included the following:
* Agricultural Schedules—including owners and sharecroppers and their acres and production
* Manufacturing & Industry Schedules—value added products; i.e., grape growers sold wine
* Mortality Schedules—those who died in the year of the census where recorded
* Slave Schedules—enslaved populations in the South recorded—no names, just sex, age, and color of their skin
* Social Statistics Schedules—general information about towns and cities
* Defective, Dependent & Delinquent Classes Schedules (DDD) listing of the disabled and homeless. Seven schedules that are very detailed from 1880 included the following: Listed are the Insane, “Idiots,” Deaf mutes, Blind, Homeless children, Prisoners, and Paupers and Indigent inhabitants. Please note that this is the terminology of the time; and we would NOT refer to these conditions today with this language.
Not all the states or territories reported. However, you may find your ancestor listed in one of the schedules above.
See more at tinyurl.com/38947r7c.