GENEALOGY: 1860 census schedule added two features to the 1850 census

By Tamie Dehler

TERRE HAUTE — The congressional guidelines for the 1860 census were the same as for the 1850 census. The census day was June 1, 1860, and the “census year” included the 12 months preceding census day. The census takers had five months to complete the enumeration. They were to record the names “of every person whose usual place of abode on the first day of June 1860 was in this family.” A person was counted as a member of the household if it was his or her usual place of residence, even though he or she might be away from home on the actual census date, June 1.

The 1860 census schedule added two features to the 1850 census. First, instead of recording only the county and state of each resident, a township and post office was included on the top of each census page.

This is a great help to family historians in pinning down a more exact location of where the family lived.

The 1860 census was also the first census to ask for the value of personal property in addition to the value of real estate. The census planners couldn’t have known how important this question about the value of personal property was to be. The 1860 census was the last census before the Civil War. If your ancestor was a slave owner, then the value of his slaves would have been included in this column because slaves were considered personal property. Compare your ancestor’s personal property value in 1860, right before the Civil War, to the value of his personal property in 1870 after the slaves had been freed.

There should be a great difference for former slave owners.

Since the 1860 census was taken right before the Civil War, it reflects a point in time when American society was still stable. The Civil War split up families, destroyed homes, killed many, caused migrations from one area to another, burned courthouses, redistributed land, and freed the slaves. Society was never the same again. To see how your family made it through the civil War, compare the 1860 to the 1870 census.

List the names and ages of the males in your ancestors’ families in 1860 to see which ones would have been old enough to have joined the army and fought in the war. The war lasted from 1861-1865, and males as young as 13 sometimes lied about their age to join the army. Examine both Union and Confederate records for males in your family who may have joined.

Check the 1870 census to see which ones came home.

The census schedule recorded each dwelling number, family number (there could be multiple families under the same roof), the full name of the person, age, sex, color (choices: white, black, mulatto), profession/occupation/trade for males over 15, value of real estate, value of personal estate, place of birth, whether married within the year, whether attending school within the year, persons over 20 years who cannot read and write, and whether blind, deaf, insane (mentally ill), idiotic (mentally handicapped), a pauper, or a convict. Remember the “year” is the census year — the 12 months before June 1, 1860.

The 1860 census also included separate agricultural, manufacturing, mortality, social statistics and slave schedules.

The 1860 federal census consists of 1,438 roles of microfilm in Group No. M653. Missing territories are Hernando County, Fla.; Bienville Parish, La.; Hancock, Sunflower and Washington counties, Miss.; Benton, Columbia, San Juan, Snonomish and Stevens counties, Wash.; and Archer, Wichita and Wilbarger counties, Texas. (There were 18 additional Texas counties that were returned by the enumerators labeled “no white population.”) Non-Indians living in eastern Oklahoma (then called Indian Territory) can be found at the end of the 1860 Arkansas census under “Indian Lands.”