IF IT WAS NOT A STATE YET IT WAS NOT SUBJECT TO ANY FEDERAL CENSUS! OR ANY STATE CENSUS. But other census may exist. Do the HISTORICAL RESEARCH to see exactly WHEN a territory became a state and consider that it might have not been populated enough yet to be considered worth doing a census there... Or, as in the case of CALIFORNIA, the state might have decided it was worth doing regularly.
California - 1788, 1790, 1796, 1797-98, 1816, 1836, 1844, 1852. (YEARS OF "CENSUS" but note that the first and only STATE CENSUS is 1852.)
California History : 1848 was the Mexican Cession following the Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Gold Rush 1848. 1849 Constitutional Convention.
Remember that the PURPOSE OF A CENSUS IS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE POPULATION. The Federal Census asks different questions every ten years. Purposes can include : Decisions on FUNDING - how money from taxes will be used for schools and education. How many people rent or own their home? How many women are employed to earn money for their own or family financial support? What sort of jobs are available in the area? Does the area attract immigrants? How many people are citizens or not?
HERE IS WHAT THE CALIFORNIA STATE LIBRARY - CENSUS page has to say!
Excerpt: The first federal census conducted in California was taken in 1850, while the Gold Rush was in full swing. Adventurers were pouring into the state, and they were very mobile in their search for the next paydirt. As a result, the accuracy of the count was questionable. Also, records for the counties of Contra Costa, San Francisco, and Santa Clara were lost or destroyed. To obtain a more reliable picture of the population, the State of California conducted its own census in 1852, the only one in the state’s history. The original census is housed at the State Archives, but it is available on microfilm in the California History Room. Because the microfilm is difficult to read, the Daughters of the American Revolution of California created a transcription of the census, as well as an index. The California History Room has both print and microfilm copies of the transcription.
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OK - so now we're going to find the resource for these earlier-pre-state records which turn out to be baptismal, marriages, and burials!
HUNTINGTON ORG : EARLY CALIFORNIA POPULATION PROJECT - DATABASES
Database of Baptism, Marriage, and Burial Records from California Missions from 1769 to 1850.
EXCERPT: Welcome to the Early California Population Project (ECPP), a reference database and research project that explores the lives of more than 100,000 individuals who appear in the sacramental records created by California’s Franciscan missionaries between 1769 and 1850. Through a partnership between the University of California, Riverside and The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, the database provides public access to all the information contained in the California mission registers, records that are of unique and vital importance to the study of the people and communities of Native California, the pobladores of Alta California’s presidios and pueblos, and the earliest Anglo-American settlers who came to California. The baptism, marriage and burial records provided here contain a wealth of information on tens of thousands of Native Americans, soldiers and settlers who lived in Spanish and Mexican California.The ECPP encompasses records from all 21 California missions as well as the Los Angeles Plaza Church and the Santa Barbara Presidio. It contains information culled from 104,000 baptisms, 28,000 marriages and 72,000 burials performed in California between 1769 and 1850 as well as cross references and links between individuals’ baptism, marriage, and burial records.
This is going to be a SERIES of POSTS and so I'm going to designate a TAG that will (eventually) bring them ALL up!
The TAG WILL BE "STATE CENSUS ADVENTURE"
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