Daily AncestorKan.
In a census birthplace column, Kan. is the abbreviation for Kansas.
Kan. is an older abbreviation of Kansas, used long before the two letter postal codes. Census takers were allowed to abbreviate state names in the place of birth column, so abbreviated state names are common in the birthplace column of nineteenth century census pages.
Kans. is another form. Kansas became a territory in 1854 and a state in 1861, so very few people in early censuses were born there.
As seen in a recordBirthplace column of the 1870 census
Fredk. Snyder, 1, Kan.
Sources
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Kan.." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/abbreviations/kan. Last checked 2026-10-01.