Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Kansas State Censuses 1855 to 1915 on Ancestry

While at the CVGS Computer Group meeting today, we were browsing through the databases on Ancestry Library Edition and I discovered the Kansas State Census Collection 1855 to 1915. Somehow I had missed this before.

I quickly input my Abbie/Abby Smith and found entries for the Devier J. (D.J.) Smith families in 1875 (in Lincoln township, Cloud County, KS) and in 1885 (in Clyde township, Clay County, KS). I had not known exactly where they had lived in these two places before. In 1880, they were in Pottawatomie County KS. In 1875, DJ Smith was a "livery and sales clerk," and in 1885 he was a "speculator." This is the guy who sold snake oil about this time!

Rather than write the census data down, I chose to email myself a link to these census pages using the "Share" button in Ancestry LE. When I got home, I brought up the page and captured it (using right-click, "Save Picture As" and putting it in with my other census images. I can print it when convenient, and attach it to my database or include it in a genealogy report.

Note that you can email census images to yourself from Ancestry Library Edition (viewed for FREE at a library with a subscription) by using the "Share" button. You can then access them at home by clicking on the link provided in the email. This "sharing" is FREE.

I had hoped to find Samuel and Mary Ann Vaux in the 1875 and 1885 Kansas state censuses, since they were in Kansas in the 1880 census. I don't know when they died or where they are buried. I'm going to go back into the data and see if I can find them under a different spelling.

Ancestry continues to add content frequently, to their credit. I check the list of Recent Databases fairly often just to see if I've missed something.

1 comment:

Miriam Robbins said...

Randy,

Fellow Washington State resident Gary Minder offers spreadsheets for Kansas State Censuses over at his website Census Tools. He also offers many spreadsheets for all US Federal Censuses; seven other states' censuses; passenger manifest lists; cemetery data; research logs; and family group sheets. These are not forms, but are Excel files that can be used to store data on your computer.