Heads Of Families At The First Census Of The United States Taken In The Year 1790

This schedule represents a complete list of the heads of families in the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. Under law, the marshals were required to ascertain the number of inhabitants within their respective districts, omitting Indians not taxed, and distinguishing free persons (including those bound to service for a term of years) from all others; the sex and color of free persons; and the number of free males 16 years of age and over. The object of the inquiry last mentioned was, undoubtedly, to obtain definite knowledge as to the military and industrial strength of the country.

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. We have represented this book in the same form as it was first published. Hence any marks seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.

"No other official record or group of records is as historically significant as the 1790 census of the United States. The taking of this census marked the inauguration of a process that continues right up to our own day--the enumeration at ten-year intervals of the entire American population" -- publisher website (June 2007).

No other official record or group of records is as historically significant as the 1790 census of the United States. The original 1790 enumerations covered the present states of Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. Unfortunately, not all the schedules have survived, the returns for the states of Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Virginia having been lost or destroyed, possibly when the British burned the Capitol at Washington during the War of 1812, though there seems to be no proof for this. For Virginia, taxpayer lists made in the years 1782-1785 have been reconstructed as replacements for the original returns. In response to repeated requests from genealogists, historians, and patriotic societies, the surviving census records were published by the Bureau of the Census in 1907 and 1908. The twelve states whose records were then extant are each covered by a single volume. The twelve published volumes contain the names of the heads of about 400,000 families, with information concerning their place of residence, the size of their families, and the approximate ages of the male family members. The families, averaging six people each, comprised about 2,400,000 individuals, or approximately 75% of the total population of the United States at the time.