Census records are Federal documents that record information on the population of the United States at ten-year intervals. You can find information relevant to a house's history in the population census, including statistics on the property owner, the head of the household, the occupants of the house and their ages, occupations of the residents (including slaves or servants), race of occupants, and country of origin.

If your house was part of a farm, the Agricultural Census can provide you with information on the type of farming that was carried out on the property, including numbers of livestock, crops raised, and farm buildings. Another kind of census record is the Census of Industry. If your property was connected with some type of industry, such as milling or blacksmithing, you should also look at these records.

What census documents are available in Delaware? The first Federal population census was conducted in 1790. Delaware's census records for 1790 are missing and believed to have been destroyed during the War of 1812 when the British invaded Washington, D.C. (Instead, see Leon De Valinger, Reconstructed 1790 census of Delaware, Wash. D.C.: National Genealogical Society, 1954. At UD: Ref. HA 296 .D481954.) Delaware's census records for 1890 have also been lost. Population census records up to 1920 have been released and are available for Delaware. Delaware's Agricultural Census and Census of Industry are available for the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Until about 1850, the information collected by census takers varied considerably. You will find more consistency in later records.

How to use? It is necessary to know what hundred a person lived in to find that person in census records. What you want to use are the enumeration schedules for the population census. These schedules give you the detailed information recorded by the census taker at each house visited. They are not in alphabetical order, but are in the order of the houses visited by the census taker for each hundred. However, there is an easy way to find the person you are researching in the enumeration schedules. Indices have been created for census years 1800-1870. These are in separate bound volumes. All you have to do is look up the name of the individual in the index, jot down the reference number, and then go to the census records on microfilm. The Agricultural Census and Census of Industry are also organized by hundred.

Assessment Records

Assessment records are the records of the taxable holdings of property owners, on which local taxes were based. Taxes were collected locally for such purposes as financing public schools. In order to base the taxes on the value of the property, tax assessors went door to door recording information on the owner's holdings, such as land, buildings, and outbuildings. In some years, only a monetary value was recorded, but you may find years when buildings, livestock, slaves, and other taxable property was listed. These public records are available for a wide range of years, from the late eighteenth century to the 1940s.

How to use? Look up the homeowner's name (under the first letter of the last name) in the hundred where the home is located. As with other records, you are looking for changes over time. Here, the change may be an increase in tax value from one assessment year to another. Such an increase could mean that a house was built. Or, the rise in value could refer to the construction of an addition or other improvement. It is useful to link the assessment information with other facts about the occupants. Have the occupants recently married? Is their farm producing exceedingly well? Such information assists when making a conjecture that an increase in the assessed value indicates the date of an addition.

Tips for General Census Records

Excerpts From the Book "Family History Made Easy"

   There are numerous ways to determine the location in which to concentrate research for an ancestor. One of the most popular and productive is the census.
Alice Eichholz, Ph.D., In Ancestry’s Red Book: American State,County and Town Sources

    Since 1790, the U.S. government has taken a nationwide population count every ten years. Unique in scope and often surprisingly detailed, the census population schedules created from 1790 to 1920 are among the most used of records created by the federal government. Over the course of two centuries the United States has changed significantly, and so has the census. From the six basic questions asked in the 1790 census, the scope and categories of information have changed and expanded dramatically.

   Early censuses were essentially basic counts of inhabitants; but as the nation grew, so did the need for statistics that would reflect the characteristics of the people. In 1850, the focus of the census was radically broadened. Going far beyond the vague questions previously asked of heads of households, the 1850 census enumerators were instructed to ask the age, sex, color, occupation, birthplace, and other questions regarding every individual in every household. Succeeding enumerations solicited more information; by 1920, census enumerators asked twenty-nine questions of every head of household and almost as many questions of everyone else in the residence. (Only a very small segment of the 1890 census remains; a fire in the Commerce Department destroyed the vast majority of the original records for that year. Because of privacy considerations, census records less than seventy-two years old are not available to the general public; thus, the 1920 census is the most recent available to the public.)

   Few, if any, records reveal as many details about individuals and families as do the U.S. federal censuses. The population schedules are successive “snapshots” of Americans that depict where and how they were living at particular periods in the past. Once home sources and library sources have been exhausted, the census is often the best starting point for further genealogical research. Statewide indexes (see “Indexes,” below) are available for almost every census; they are logical tools for locating individuals whose precise place of residence is unknown. While some inaccuracies are to be expected in census records, they still provide some of the most fascinating and useful pieces of personal history to be found in any source. If nothing else, census records are important sources for placing individuals in specific places at specific times. Additionally, information found in the census will often point to other sources critical to complete research, such as court, land, military, immigration, naturalization, and vital records.

   The importance of census records does not diminish over time in any research project. It is always wise to return to these records as discoveries are made in other sources because, as you discover new evidence about individuals, some information that seemed unrelated or unimportant in a first look at the census may take on new importance.

   When you can’t find family, vital, or religious records, census records may be the only means of documenting the events of a person’s life. Vital registration—the official recording of births, deaths, and marriages—did not begin until around 1920 in many areas of the United States, and fires, floods and other disasters since have destroyed some official government records. When other documentation is missing, census records are frequently used by individuals who must prove their age or citizenship status (or that of their parents) for Social Security benefits, insurance, passports, and other important reasons.

How to Find Census Records
   All available federal census schedules (those made from 1790 to 1920) have been microfilmed and are available at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.; at the National Archives’ regional archives; at the Family History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS church) in Salt Lake City and LDS family history centers throughout North America (see chapter 8, “The Family History Library and Its Centers”); at many large libraries; in genealogical society libraries; and through companies that lend microfilmed records. Some state and local agencies have census schedules for the state or area they serve. Generally, microfilm copies may be borrowed through interlibrary loan.

Starting With the Census
   It is usually best to begin a census search in the most recently available census records (1920) and to work from what is already known about a family. With any luck, birthplaces and other clues found in these more recent records will point to locations of earlier residence.

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