I use the census records from Ancestry.com to research my family. The older forms are
very invasive which means they also have lots of good information for genealogists. The current one will be useless in 72 years when it is released to the public.
To see just how invasive that they really were, here are the fields they used. Before 1850, they only listed head of households and how many were in the house. I didn't clean up the choice of words, it was what it was.
1840
- Name of head of house only
- Number of people in the house in each 5 year age bracket by male, female and free colored
All persons in the house are listed separately from here.
1850
- Age
- Sex
- Color
- Profession
- Value of Real Estate
- Place of birth
- Married this year
- Attended school this year
- Person over 20 who cannot read or write
- Whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper or convict
1860
- Same as 1850 with the addition of Value of Personal Estate
1870 Same as 1860 with these addition additions
- Father of foreign birth
- Mother of foreign birth
- Born this year
- Male citizen of USA over 21
- Male citizen of USA over 21 denied the vote on grounds other than rebellion
1880 Similar to 1870 with these addition additions and subtractions
- Males over 21 are both gone
- Relationship to head of house
- Widowed
- Number of months unemployed this year
- Place of birth of father
- Place of birth of mother
1890 census was mostly lost in a fire.
1900 Similar to 1880 with these additions
- Number of years married
- Mother of how many children
- Number of living children
- Year of Immigration to US
- Number of years in US
- Naturalized?
- Can speak English
- Owned or rented
- Owned free of mortgage
- Farm or house
- Number of farm schedule
1910 Similar to 1900 with a bit more break down of education and work
1920 Same as 1910 with these additions
- Native tongue of person
- Native tongue of father of person
- Native tongue of mother of person
Threaded Mode
