A Guide to Interpreting Kentucky's Census Records

The first United States census was undertaken by the federal government in 1790 in order to determine the size of the population, as well as some basic distinctions regarding the sex, age, and race. Congress appointed federal marshals in each judicial district the responsibility of carrying out and tallying the census. They, in turn, appointed assistant marshals, also called enumerators to travel about the countryside and gather information.

Organized Chaos

In earlier census records, there were no standardized forms, set ways to tally the information or ways to ensure that census results were an accurate interpretation of the area. Americans during the Colonial times viewed enumeration as an unwarranted intrusion of the government into their private lives. Some avoided enumerators for fear of having their taxes raised; others on religious grounds. Those in the hills of Eastern Kentucky avoided enumerators for fear that "Revenuers" were out to compile lists of those involved in moonshining.

Local political pressure, too, skewed census results. Frequently enumerators were bribed into "padding the totes," adding fictitious or dead persons to the census rolls, in order to prove a population large enough for a territory to be granted statehood or county status.

Other times, they were conned into believing that the district's borders did not include certain areas, to keep the population numbers - and consequently the taxation - low, causing under-reporting. During the 1870 census, seven out of every hundred persons were not included on the census rolls; in 1880, twelve out of every hundred were omitted. To complicate matters, many residents were not consistent with the information they provided. After the creation of Kenton County in 1840, some property owners claimed residency in either Boone or Kenton year after year, selecting whichever county with the lowest tax rate at the time. Needless to say, this made an enumerator's job -and makes a researchers job- a challenge.

Kentucky as Part of the Census

In 1790, Kentucky had not yet been granted statehood; instead, it was included as a county in the first census of Virginia. Unfortunately, the Federal census schedules of 1790 and 1800 were destroyed during the British attack on Washington during the War of 1812. During the early 1900's, Congress directed that certain information be compiled in effort to reconstruct the 1790 census. This was accomplished by using tax lists as a substitute for the census data. In this same fashion, the Union Veteran's Schedule was used to replace the Kentucky section of the 1890 census which was also destroyed by fire at the Commerce Building in Washington D.C.

Poster "Have Your Answers Ready State-Military" (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

 

Image: Cartoon showing man taking census from old woman, who thinks he wants to take her senses. (Harper's Weekly June 14, 1890. Library of Congress)

Satisfaction Guaranteed?

Enumerators were instructed to gather information from households, whether from the head of the household or whoever could or would provide it. This meant that information could have been, and often was, provided by a child living in the household or even a neighbor.

When having difficulty researching census records, always consider alternatives, such as alternative spellings of a name and possible mix ups involving relationships. In pioneer Kentucky, very few settlers could read or write; many not even able to spell or recognize their own names. Enumerators would have to rely upon their own phonetic spellings that, especially for European names, were often inaccurate.

Many times the age of a person was unknown, or was based on what someone else had told them. If a child was very big or small for her age, non-relatives might have incorrectly guessed her age.

Click on the image to try reading
the Colonial script of Harry Innis
documenting the election of Isaac Shelby
as Kentucky's first governor.

Reading the Handwriting

One of the hardest parts of researching older documents is reading handwriting. Enumerators did not write with the intent that researchers would be reading the handwriting several years later. Their job was to simply tally those in their respective districts and report the findings to the Marshall, who would tally all of the answers and send them to Washington D.C. Handwritten notes taken by an enumerator after a long hot day of climbing knobs and crossing creeks may have been legible to only him.

Hints to reading Colonial/Victorian handwriting:

• Watch out for double "S's." The first "S" in a pair was often written to look like a lower case "F."
• Double letters were often written as single letter with a line or tilde above them.
• Name abbreviations usually consist of the first three or four letters plus the last letter as a superscript.
• First letters were not always capitalized
• Initials were often used as the "given name"
• Depending on the script, a stroke, flourish, curl, swirl, squiggle or loop changed the appearance of the letter or word

Since the columns on the census forms were narrow, enumerators used abbreviations as codes for answers. In most cases, the abbreviations came from a standard spelled out somewhere on the census form.

Once enumerators completed their task, the handwritten schedules were posted in two of the "most public places" to ensure accuracy. Sometimes a schedule would be rewritten several times - often to put heads of household in alphabetical order, then to provide copies for posting. The possibility for error or misreading increased each time the census information was rewritten.

Using the Soundex >>