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Name
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Locality
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County
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Page number
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Index 
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The every-name index in the example shows the best way to index census records. It is an every-name index that gives the age, gender, color, and birthplace of each person named on each page of a census. Unfortunately, less than one percent of the published census indexes available today match that format or standard. |
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The standard format for census indexes published in book form and on CD-ROM includes only the information listed on the left. |
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If you are looking for an ancestor names William Johnson in a standarad 1860 census index, it would not be uncommon to find ten or more people listed by that name in one county. Without any other identifying information, it would be impossible to determine which of the ten is your ancestor. Make sure you examine each entry and match the information in the census to what you know about the family before deciding they are your ancestors! |
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Without indexes, census records researchers would have to search line-by-line to find an ancestor. Using that method could take a few or hundreds of hours depending on where the ancestor lived. Few people, if any, would take the time to search the 1900 census for someone living in New York City or Philadelphia. |
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Every index contains some errors and omissions. If you don't find your ancestor listed in an index, but know the ancestor lived in a specific place in a rural county, do a line-by-line search of the census for that place. |
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If an ancestor with an uncommon surname isn't listed in a census index, but five others of the same surname are listed, check the townships and counties where they live to see if your ancestor is listed nearby. |
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For an in-depth discussion of census indexes see Loretto Dennis Szuc's "Research in Census Records" in The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy, Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, eds., Rev. ed. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1997: 103-148. |
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