81 million census names now online
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Three important census records containing 81 million names are now online on the Church's FamilySearch Internet site, further expanding the reach of family history research at home.
The three census are the 1880 U.S. Census, the 1881 Canadian Census much of the 1881 British Census, providing a cross-section of much of the English-speaking world in the latter 19th century.
An announcement to the news media of the added database was made simultaneously in 27 U.S. and Canadian cities on Oct. 23 with President Gordon B. Hinckley delivering the announcement in the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. Providing the exclamation point for the announcement was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which performed "O Canada" and "The Star-Spangled Banner."
The multiple press conferences in Los Angeles, Calif.; Toronto, Ontario; Washington, D.C., and New York City, N.Y., to name a few, made it the largest family history announcement in the history of the Church.
With President Hinckley were his two counselors, President Thomas S. Monson and President James E. Faust, and Elder Neal A. Maxwell and Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve.
The announcements were made from behind a 19th century pulpit from the old Tabernacle that has now been used by every Church president except Joseph Smith. A red, fringed-top buggy stood on the rostrum as a reminder of lifestyle in the 1880s. Names of famous people with their images and census information added to a profile of the past.
"An amazing thing happens when people begin to trace their roots," said President Hinckley. "They discover that they are not alone in the world. They have a heritage, a legacy. And once they understand that, they sense responsibility to carry on where their ancestors left off."
President Hinckley extolled the free, on-line resource. "The searchable indexes of more than 55 million names are available at www.familysearch.org. They signify another great leap forward in online family history research. Chances are very high that many of today's Canadians and Americans can find ancestors in the online databases. If a person's family lived in one of these two nations at that time and was counted in the census, becoming connected to the past is only a few keystrokes away.
"In 1880, in the United States and 1881 in Canada, thousands of census takers ventured into crowded cities and remote villages to gather specified information on every man, woman and child. With forms in hand these enumerators often traveled hundreds of dusty miles to isolated farms counting millions of people of diverse ethnicity," he continued.
The records they gathered "have produced a wealth of family history information." He expressed sincere thanks to the Church volunteers and others spent years compiling the records.
"From immigrants and railroad workers to farmers and future presidents, the 1880 United States Census paints a portrait of Americans in a country churning with change," said President Hinckley. "Still recovering from the Civil War, the nation found itself on the verge of industrialization, wondering at innovations in technology and absorbing waves of immigrants.
"The 1881 Canadian Census captures a people striving to carve out a national identity, culture and economy only 14 years after distinct British colonies in Canada had been unified as a confederation of provinces."
He noted that he had an ancestral heritage from both the United States and Canada. A great-grandfather, Nathaniel Hinckley, lived in Leeds County, Ontario. "As I learn about my own ancestors who worked so hard and sacrificed so much, it only increases my sense of identity and deepens my commitment to honor their memory."
He observed that the Church houses more than 2.2 million rolls of microfilm that are used at the Family History Library and in more than 3,800 family history centers in 88 countries. The Church's website familysearch.org receives more than 7 million hits daily.
"The eternal family unit is one of the sacred teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," he concluded. "We hope that by finding ancestors in the 1880 United States Census and 1881 Canadian Census individuals will seek out other records to further document their family histories. . . . We hope that by searching for our ancestors we will ultimately understand who we are and what we can become."
Elder Eyring illustrated the ease with which the search can be conducted. He found, as an example, the household of telephone inventor Alexander G. Bell, who listed himself as a "Prof. of Electrician." Elder Eyring also demonstrated a neighbor search to discover if relatives lived nearby.
"One thing is clear," he said. "This is not about records. It is about people."
Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Presidency of the Seventy and executive director of the Family and Church History Department conducted the conference. "People used to search through rolls and rolls of microfilm with varying degrees of success," he said. "Now with just a few key strokes they can search through millions of records at any time and wherever they connect to the Internet, including at home."
Substantially easier to use than the "telephone book" approach envisioned in the future by Church leaders in the 1970s, the search begins on the FamilySearch homepage under the "search" tab. On the left are various data banks available for search. Clicking on "census" brings up a simple search screen with the capacity to search all three census records. A general search brings up long lists of names that can be narrowed with a more specific search.
Managers of the Church's website said they did not expect use of the new database to overload the system. If the user traffic overwhelms the system, they said users would be rotated on and off.
The U.S. census extraction project was started in 1984 and entailed 11.5 million hours of work by volunteer extractors. The Church partnered with the Minnesota Population Center of the University of Minnesota, which helped in the considerable work of cleaning up and completing the project. Representatives of this university participated in a press conference in Minneapolis. The census has been previously available on 55 CD-ROM discs selling for $49. It holds twice as many names as the Ellis Island records and 12 times as many African-American names as the Freedman's Bank Records. It is a fully extracted record with every name searchable. It contains each individual's full name, relationship to head of the house, age, gender, race, marital status, occupation, birthplace, and the birthplace of the individual's parents.
The Canadian 1881 Census was extracted by Church members in Canada and the United States and includes the then-existing provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. (The Northwest Territories in 1881 contained the current provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and parts of historical Manitoba, Quebec, and Ontario, plus the Territory of Yukon and the western part of the Territory of Nunavut.) Students at the University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, helped in cleaning up the data and preparing it for publication. Representatives of this university took part in a press conference in Ottawa.
The British 1881 Census required 2.5 million hours of volunteer labor over an 11-year period and holds information on about 26 million names from England and Wales. (The 1881 census for Ireland does not exist.) Church members teamed with Federation of Family History Societies in the United Kingdom to complete the exhaustive project.
In the extraction process, entries are evaluated a third and fourth time by trained individuals and then double checked for accuracy. Still, those doing research are encouraged to check the information against the original sources, a process made simple by automation.
The names on the 81-million name resource include many of those who shaped the world to the present: author Mark Twain, inventor Thomas Edison, William "Buffalo Bill" Cody and Little Women author Louisa May Alcott. Canadian notables include Canada's first prime minister, John A Macdonald; Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery; and the creator of basketball, James Naismith. A grandson, Stuart Naismith, attended the Salt Lake City press conference.
In the British census are listed authors Charles L. Dodgson, also known as Lewis Carroll; and Joseph R. (Rudyard) Kipling, then 15; and future statesman, then 6-year-old Winston Churchill, son of Lord Randolph Churchill, Member of Parliament.
E-mail: jhart@desnews.com
