Daily AncestorThe 1880 U.S. Census
The 1880 census, dated June 1, 1880, is the first to give each person's relationship to the head of household, plus marital status and parents' birthplaces.
The tenth census began on June 1, 1880. Marshals no longer ran it: supervisors appointed for each state hired enumerators and checked their work.
For family historians, 1880 settles questions the earlier censuses left open. It says whether a person was the head's wife, son, stepdaughter, or boarder, whether each person was single, married, widowed, or divorced, and where each person's father and mother were born.
The questions, column by column
| Name and relationship to the head of the family | Wife, son, mother-in-law, servant, boarder, and so on. |
|---|---|
| Color, sex, age | Age at last birthday before June 1; babies in twelfths. |
| Month of birth if born within the year | Only for babies born June 1879 through May 1880. |
| Single, married, widowed, divorced; married within the year | Married within the year points to a marriage record from 1879 or 1880. |
| Occupation and months unemployed during the year | Occupation was asked of persons 10 and older. |
| Sick or disabled; blind, deaf and dumb, idiotic, insane, or crippled | Recorded in the language of the time. |
| Attended school, cannot read, cannot write | Marks only. |
| Place of birth of the person, father, and mother | Three birthplaces per line, a strong lead for immigrant families. |
New this census
- Relationship to the head of household.
- Marital status.
- Birthplace of each parent.
- Months unemployed and current sickness or disability.
Watch out for
- Relationship is to the head of household, not to the person on the line above.
- Ages are as of June 1, 1880, even when the visit came later.
- Indians not taxed, defined as Indians on reservations under government agents or living in bands on unsettled land, were left off the general schedule.
Other schedules
- Mortality schedule: deaths from June 1, 1879, to May 31, 1880, now adding marital status, parents' birthplaces, and where the illness was caught.
- Agriculture schedules with acreage for each crop, poultry, and eggs, plus manufacturing schedules.
- Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent Classes schedules, which name deaf, blind, and imprisoned people, among others, with details about each.
- In 1885 Colorado, Florida, Nebraska, and the territories of Dakota and New Mexico took their own censuses with federal help.
Where to see it
- Population schedules are microfilm T9. FamilySearch (free with an account) and Ancestry (free on computers at National Archives facilities) both index it and show the images.
- 1880 was opened to researchers in 1952 under the agreement that became the 72-year rule.