In this episode of the Family Tree Podcast, Lindsey Harner offers tips for navigating census records before 1850.

Feature: Strategies for Using Pre-1850 US Censuses

The census is one of those records that serves as the backbone of genealogy. However, not all census records are the same. Have you run into the dreaded “1850 brick wall”? Lindsey Harner is here to help us understand what’s so significant about that year, and how you can use the earlier census records successfully.

Read “Come to Your Census” by Harner in the July/August 2024 issue of Family Tree Magazine.

Other Pre-1850s Census Resources:

FamilySearch Research Wiki

National Archives – Census Records

Get more tips from Harner in the online article “Secrets to Find Ancestors in Early US Census Records.”

For more details on census records, see the National Archives landing page for each census, or the FamilySearch Research Wiki’s pages for each state’s census.

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