With the 1950 census in hand, we may wonder how the early census records can be helpful to our research.
Just to refresh, in 1776 Independence was Declared. Then there was the Revolutionary War. Before a first President, George Washington, who was a military war General, was installed it was April 30th, 1789. He was an eight year, two term president. The first Federal United States Census was 1790.
The earliest census are, but for the name of the head of household, usually a male and a husband, and the rest rather statistical. If you haven't seen these the questions are about how many males and females are in the household and what their age categories are. So we can't expect the names of every member of a household until 1850.
First if you do have ancestors on the 1850 you can reasonably related to at least some the family members ten years back based on the statistics, sometimes more. You can also go forwards to see if people are named, depending on if they are alive and so on.
However, perhaps the most important aspect of finding the state and county and town or place of residence of a family member is because of how that relates to court records. Before there were civil record requirements (Vital Records) people pretty much kept a record of when people in the family were born or died in a Bible or such. So, the older census are still helpful for locating them. Our early colonial ancestors moved a lot, usually as the family expanded for the purchase of land to farm or ranch. If we know where they were, we can then attempt to find records of land purchases and sales, wills, and so on.
As a note, we would also like to find them on maps.
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