I was reviewing past articles in my Family Tree Magazine© and I found an entry that I had previously missed. When I first looked at it I realized that I had not used my Census research properly. I'm guessing that many of you have run into the same problem.
Census records from many countries are not new. Accessing them online is newer. In the past I have researched an ancestor and found them on a particular census. Did you try to find the same individual on an earlier or later census? I did, but I never documented each of the censuses that I had researched. I only documented the "found" records.
The little paragraph in the magazine suggested that we make a census record, a worksheet that is designed to help us tract ancestor's locations. I had a look at the sample that the magazine had and realized that it was limited to just the U.S. I have ancestors in Canada and the United Kingdom as well, and thought that I could do something similar that would help me track my ancestors.
I put together this form census-tracking.txt that you can download and use to tack your ancestors, whether they are in the U.S., United Kingdom or Canada. In fact, you can modify it to work with any country you need. Simply click on the link and save the file to your hard drive.
The important tip here is to use the form to record where you found each and every ancestor. If you copy the format into a worksheet it may be possible to add all of the pertinent information into the associated cell for each year. If you use a regular document editor it might be easier to simply record a reference number or letter in the cell and include the details in a note below the chart. Here's an example of what I mean:
US Census Tracking
| Name | 1790 | 1800 | … | 1850 | 1860 | 1870 | 1880 | … |
| John Brown | . | . | . | a | . | b | c | . |
| . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . |
| . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . |
| Ref# | City | County | State | Roll | Page | Image | Other source citation information |
| a | Johnston | Providence | RI | M432_847 | 284 | 128 | from Ancestry.com |
| b | Township 7 | Baldwin | AL | M593_1 | 290 | 580 | from Ancestry.com |
| c | Philadelphia | Philadelphia | PA | T9_1167 | 96.1000 | 0575 | Family History Film 1255167 |
You can use any method that you like, but by recording this information in a common place, using a standard format will make it so much easier for you to understand the movements of your ancestors and perhaps help find new leads to other relatives that moved with them.
For more information about searching Census documents and recording your ancestor's journey see my Ancestry.com - Helping You Discover Your Heritage webpage or my article Census Records - Valuable Historical Information Waiting To Be Rediscovered. I'm sure that you will enjoy both.
Take a few minutes to let us know how you like my census-tracking.txt form and let me know if there are improvements that we can make to it. There's always room to improve the tools we use to make our research easier and more effective.
I enjoy uncovering my heritage. If you are already a member of All-About-Family-Trees.com, take a moment to add your story in the Chat Forum. If you are not a member, then take a few minutes and join our community. Simply click on the link at the top right of the page, create a username and be sure to signup for our weekly newsletter. As an added bonus, I'll send you a free copy of my e-book '10 "Must Know" Tips to Uncover Your Heritage'.
I look forward to seeing you in the forum.
