U.S. Census Materials

The U.S. population census records contain a wealth of information about people. The federal manuscript (population) census records are the actual handwritten names of individuals. These records provide in depth data for each individual in a census tract. The data in each census varies but it may include a full range of factors such as street address, age, race, ethnicity, gender, place of birth, if and when they were naturalized, education, value of property, marital status, when married or divorced--how many times, number of children, renter or owner of dwelling. They can be used in conjunction with the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps to reconstruct the demographic and physical structure of urban and suburban neighborhoods. The census records are an especially helpful source for someone writing community history and for someone interested in the local social and economic conditions. Among the questions that this source could answer are: what percentage of the adult population was married? what are the average number of children? is there a pattern in different jurisdictions as the family migrated? when do most women begin having children? what is the divorce rate? what percentage of the population are in the lower, middle, and upper classes? what neighborhoods do each live in? how many women have jobs outside the home? how many men and women are unemployed, uneducated? how does this vary by race, gender and ethnicity? etc. A special online database for Nevada manuscript census from 1860-1920 is available at http://dmla.clan.lib.nv.us/docs/shpo/NVCENSUS/.

The manuscript census records are located in the Microforms Area of the library, while the statistical census records are located in Government Publications area of the library. The website for the U.S. Census Bureau is: http://www.census.gov. Another helpful website for Historical Statistical Census from 1790 - 1960 is http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/. These sites do not provide manuscript (population) census information. The records from the population censuses are confidential for 72 years, by law (Title 44, U.S. Code). See the end of this section for ways to search for other census materials in microforms.

All federal manuscript censuses below are listed by state and are in microfilm format. They are located in the white tagged cabinets in call number order. A fire destroyed all federal general schedules for 1890. Only the supplemental schedules for Union veterans of the Civil War and their widows are available.

These searches can be done from a library computer terminal. Select library catalog .

To see if we have a particular state's census, make sure Keyword is selected and type census and the state desired (i.e. census and California). To view only those items in the Microforms Area, click on Advanced Search and under Location, click the drop down arrow and choose UNLV Microforms. Do the same Keyword search described above.

To see census and population materials, select Keyword and type census and population. If you want to limit results to those items in the Microforms Area, click on Advanced Search, and under Location, click the drop down arrow and choose UNLV Microforms. Do the Keyword search. This search will yield over 100 entries and will include the records for the population (federal manuscript) census, including the colonial census records. For census legislation in Congress in the Colonial period, and other non population materials, select Keywords and type census not population. If you need to limit the results to items in the Microforms Area, go to Advanced Search and under Location, click the drop down arrow and choose UNLV Microforms. Do the Keyword search as described above.

Other microform materials that contain some census information are the business, city, county, and state directories. These directories come from the following microform research collections: the Early American Imprints Collection, the Cox County Library Collection and the Western Americana Collection. To access these directories select Library Catalog. Select Keywords and type directories (or try directory) and a city (i.e. Boston), or a county (i.e. Elko), or a state (i.e. Kansas). It is best to search directories and city first before pursuing county or state search. Select any record that indicates the location as UNLV Microforms. To see the whole list of directories in microforms, go to Advanced Search, select Keyword from the Library Catalog and type directories. Click the drop down arrow next to Location and select UNLV Microforms. This search will yield over 200 entries. Note: not all directories contain census information.