This week’s #FridayFind is… the 1870 census!

For anyone who’s good with remembering dates, you might have caught that this would have been the first census after the Civil War. And to say this changed how censuses were conducted would be a massive understatement.

Until 1870, enslaved people were listed statistically under their enslavers. That is to say only as numbers to be counted towards the amount of representatives a state had in Congress. (Remember the Three-fifths Compromise?) Check out the 1840 census (the second image above) for an example.

In comparison, the 1870 census (see the first image) lists all African Americans alongside the rest of the population with full biographical information. Thus, this census is often the first official record of a surname for former enslaved people.

Hit a brick wall in your genealogy research? Email us at emma@backlog-archivists.com!