June – Resources

CVGS Resources for US Census Records                                                                                          

Census records give important information about your family, such as the names and ages of family members and their relationships to one another, and give the location where they lived on a specific date. A census record may be the only record available for documenting a person’s life events when other records do not exist. A census can extend your pedigree further back and add missing family members. There is a high probability of finding the person for whom you are searching in a census since about 90% of U.S. citizens are listed in the censuses.

Census differences thru the years

1960- Households received enumeration forms in the mail and then mailed them back.

1950- Six persons per sheet were asked extra “Sample” questions. The Bureau of the Census experimented with self-enumeration and household forms in certain Enumeration Districts (EDs) in Michigan and Ohio.

1940- Years of Education -H=High School, C=College

1920 — The year a respondent was naturalized (became a citizen)
1910 — If a man was a veteran of the Civil War
1900 — The number of children a woman had given birth to

1880 — Asked for relationships of household members and for parents’ birthplaces

1870 — Asked if an individual’s parents were born outside the U.S., the individual had been born or married within the year.                   

1850 – The first census to list all the names in a household, plus age, gender, race, and birthplace.                                                                                                                                     

FamilySearch Wiki US Census Records Class Handout: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/U._S._Census_Records_Class_Handout

FamilySearch Wiki US Census Records: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/United_States_Census

RootsWeb/Ancestry Wiki US Census Records: https://wiki.rootsweb.com/wiki/index.php/Category:U.S._Census_and_Voter_Lists

Ancestry US Census Records: https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/usfedcen/

Cyndi’s List – United States – US Census Records: https://www.cyndislist.com/us/census/

Four free CENSUS downloads from Ancestry: https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Free-Research-Guides                                                                           

Have I been Hacked/pwned? – Why you need 14+ letter & number Passwords

https://haveibeenpwned.com/ or https://monitor.firefox.com

FREE – Check if your email, password, or phone number is in a data breach. I found these 2.

EG: Ancestry: RootsWeb suffered a data breach. The Nov 2015 breach was found in late 2017. Almost 300k email addresses & plain text passwords were taken.

EG: MyHeritage: Files of its now-for-sale database were taken in October 2017, it told the world about in 2018. Compromised data: Email addresses, Passwords

Actions to take: Change your passwords at all sites you use. Create strong, unique passwords, save in your web browser or password manager. Use passwords of 14+ letters & numbers & special characters. Use a second/multi-step verification (phone / email code) whenever possible. It takes 2 seconds to crack a 7-letter password. It takes 730 years to crack a 14-letter password! So add in numbers, uppercase letters & special characters https://random-ize.com/how-long-to-hack-pass/