United States, Census, 1790

What is in This Collection?

The collection consists of an index to the population schedules listing the inhabitants of the United States taken in August of 1790. This was the first national census conducted in the United States and is NARA microfilm publication M637 First Census of the United States,1790 from Record Group 29 Records of the Bureau of the Census. This index is provided by Ancestry.com. The census schedules were also published by the Government Printing Office in 1908. See related printed schedules below. This census provides names for heads of household, for about 10 to 15 percent of the population, and provide only a number count for the others.

Federal census takers were asked to record information about every person who was in each household on the census day, which was the first Monday in August for 1790. A census taker might have visited a house on a later date, but the information he collected was supposed to be about the people who were in the house on the census day. The basic census enumeration unit was the county. Each county was divided into enumeration districts, one for each enumerator. The completed forms were sent to the Commerce Department’s Census Office in Washington, D.C.

Federal censuses are usually reliable, depending on the knowledge of the informant and the care of the census enumerator. Information may have been given to a census taker by any member of the family or by a neighbor. Some information may have been incorrect or deliberately falsified.

Population schedules consisted of large sheets with rows and columns. The schedules were arranged by place, such as township or post office. The places were not filed in any particular order. The arrangement of families on a schedule is normally in the order in which the enumerator visited the households. The original schedules are well preserved at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. They were microfilmed in the 1950s and 1960s. The schedules for some counties in varying censuses are missing.

The schedules for some counties are missing in the 1790 census and no schedules are known to exist for the following states in 1790: Delaware,Georgia,Kentucky,New Jersey,Tennessee,Virginia.

Census Substitutes

Delaware:

• Leon DeValinger. Jr. Reconstructed 1790 Census of Delaware. Washington[District of Columbia: National Genealogical Society, 1962. FS Library 975.1 X2d 1790
• Harold B Hancock. ed. The Reconstructed Delaware State Census of 1782. Wilmington,Delaware:Delaware Genealogical Society, 1983. FS Library 975.1 X2r 1782

Georgia:

• Marie De Lamar & Elisabeth Rothstein. The Reconstructed 1790 Census of Georgia:Substitutes for Georgia's Lost 1790 Census.Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1985 FS Library 975.8 X2L

Kentucky:

• Charles B. Heinemann.comp. First Census of Kentucky,1790. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1993. FS Library 976.9 X2ph 1790 census

Tennessee:

• Lucy Kate McGhee. comp. Partial Census of 1787 to 1791 of Tennessee as taken from the North Carolina Land Grants

Printed Schedules

Additional records and/or images may be added to this collection in the future.

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What Can These Records Tell Me?

The following information may be found in these records:

Collection Content

Sample Image

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  1790 Census, Frederick, Maryland