Thursday 13 March 2014

Ancestry releases 2.4m census records for C19th MA

As if this week's brand new Irish Roman Catholic parish registers weren't enough from Ancestry (see blogpost), they've gone and delivered another couple of record sets that have huge Irish interest: the Massachusetts State Censuses, 1855 and 1865.

And I mean huge. There are 1,138,563 individuals recorded in the earlier census and 1,273,140 in the later one. And they're both practically overflowing with Irish! I've just searched the 1865 returns and found 22 Santrys, for heaven's sake, and they're not two-a-penny.

The census returns for both years recorded the following details: name, age, gender, race, occupation and birthplace. The 1865 census additionally recorded marital status. Although the individuals are grouped by household, the head of household is not indicated. Relationship between the individuals are not noted, either.

To search the collections, take your pick:

Massachusetts State Census 1855

Massachusetts State Census 1865

UPDATE 15 March
: Ancestry has also updated its collection of nearly 10million birth, marriage and death records 1840–1915 for Massachusetts.