Talk:1840 United States census

title of 1844 report

"Mentally Ill African Americans" doesn't really sound like 1844 terminology; I wonder if a description of the contents of the report has been conflated as a subtitle? -- AnonMoos (talk) 06:48, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/458/27/
  • In 1840 United States Census on 2011-05-25 02:04:52, 404 Not Found
  • In 1840 United States Census on 2011-06-01 22:49:46, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 22:50, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 2

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/census/1790-1840.html
  • In 1840 United States Census on 2011-05-25 02:04:52, 404 Not Found
  • In 1840 United States Census on 2011-06-01 22:49:55, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 22:50, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Any problems with the 1840 Census?

There's nothing about there being errors, omissions, or damage/losts in this Census (aside from the "insane Negro" conflict). Looking at relatives who lived in Orange County, New York, there are many missing from this Census. Perhaps some migrated prior to the enumeration, but most did not and are still there in 1850. So, are there any known problems or was it a coincidence that my relatives are MIA, even from multiple towns (Deerpark, Minisink, Mount Hope, Wawayanda, Wallkill)? Thanks for your time, Wordreader (talk) 20:08, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I have no specific evidence, but I suspect this omission isn't related to any general or systemic defect in the 1840 census. Every census is subject to some degree of error, and, in my experience, it's not particularly unusual for specific persons to have been missed or (more often) misidentified at one time or another. Over the years, some (though surprisingly few, it appears to me) census-takers may have been incompetent, negligent, or malicious. Some may in good faith have misinterpreted what they were told, perhaps because they didn't understand the subject's accent or dialect. Some may have looked down on certain individuals or groups, and may have been less than diligent in collecting information on those. On the other hand, some inhabitants may have mistrusted census-takers and given them incomplete or misleading information. Some may not have spoken a language the census-taker could understand, or vice versa. Some subjects may have evaded the census-taker or otherwise refused to co-operate.

One can think up any number of potential reasons why certain persons in a certain locality might be left out of the census—maybe the local political machine wanted supporters of the opposition (who might be concentrated in certain census districts) under-counted. (I don't know for sure, but I would assume that, before the Civil Service was established, census jobs were subjects of political patronage.) Maybe a family or individual had a personal feud with whoever supervised the census locally. Maybe while the census-takers were out, Wordreader's relatives were spending a season at Saratoga or Hot Springs, if they were rich, or maybe they were out following the harvest, if they were poor. I would imagine that the best clues to an explanation would be found in family letters and diaries of the time, if those exist and are available; or in local newspapers, court documents, and similar public records from the towns in question. It's also possible that the Department of the Census still has the individual returns for Orange County, or that they've been placed in the New York State Archives. (If memory serves, a lot of local census records have been given to the archives of the States they cover.) Visits to census.gov, archives.gov, and the New York State Archives, along with some specific inquiries to their helpful staffs might produce some leads.

(By "specific inquiries", I mean, less like, "Why aren't my relatives in Orange County, NY, listed in the 1840 census returns?", and more like, "My ancestor, Anacharsis Strong (b. 1796, Wawayanda, NY, d. 1872, Minisink, NY), appears on Sheet 19, line 23 of the 1830 census return for Libertyville district, Town of Wawayanda, Orange County, New York, where his address is given as 4 Montgomery Street, along with his wife Hepzibah and three named children. He is listed at the same address on Sheet 12, line 2 of the corresponding return for the 1850 census, again with his wife Hepzibah, and now with seven children, two daughters in law, and four grandchildren; but the family is not listed at all in the relevant return for the 1840 census. Does your department have any information that might help me discover the cause of this omission?" In my experience, research workers like to be helpful, but they don't have time to help patrons figure out what questions they want to ask.)

Jdcrutch (talk) 19:30, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Assessment

@Jdcrutch: Per your request at Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/Assessment/Requests, I have assessed the article at C class. The article reasonably covers the topic, but some statements that are likely to be challenged such as "The 1840 Census was the first that attempted to count Americans who were 'insane' or 'idiotic'" lack a direct inline citation. Winner 42 Talk to me! 17:23, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Possible source

Stephen Jay Gould discusses the 1840 Census in Chapter 23 of his book (column collection) Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes... AnonMoos (talk) 05:59, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:2020 United States Census which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 22:35, 16 November 2020 (UTC)