CENSUS BOOKS

On March 1, 1790 President George Washington signed a measure authorizing the first U.S. census.  (Prior to that date "...a census was taken in Virginia, and people were counted in nearly all of the British colonies that became the United States." (Wikipedia article, "United States Census")  Since 1790 a census has been conducted every ten years in this country, with the last one completed in 2010.

While the census statistics are used by the government in various ways, they can be of use to private citizens also. Those of us who are into genealogy usually find them quite helpful. In fact, census reports may be one of the first sources we go to when researching family trees.

The Bullis Collection has many books that may be of interest to those of you researching your ancestors.  We're describing three of them in this post. Two of these books cover the New York state census, which we've been told were conducted every ten years from 1825-1875, in 1892, and then again from 1905-1925.

1. United States life tables, 1910,

published by the Washington Govt. Printing Office, 1916,

65 pages including tables

2.  Census of the state of New York, for 1865: taken in pursuance

of article third of the constitution of the state, and of chapter

sixty-four of the laws of 1865,

published in Albany: printed by C. Van Benthuysen & Sons, 1867, 743 pages

3. A Gazetteer of the state of New York: comprising its topography, geology,

mineralogical resources, civil divisions, canals, railroad and public institutions,

together with general statistics, the whole alphabetically arranged; also, statistical

tables, including the census of 1840, and tables of distances: with a new township map of the

state, engraved on steel, by J. Disturnell, 1842, 479 pages, 2 leaves of plates, map

(Wow! We challenge you to read that last title in one breath!)

These books (and a lot of others--most of which have shorter titles) are in the Bullis Room for your use. If you're interested in using them to aid in your family tree search (or for any other research), please call the library and arrange for a time to meet with one of us volunteers.