Tracking Your Ancestor in the Census  

Grab Your Saddle and Go Track Those Ancestors!

I've experimented with several ways of tracking ancestors and/or ancestral families in the census. I even created a chart that would work for one person, though you could use it and just put in a family name (example: The John Witherspoon Givens Family). It provides such a wealth of information if you have the data from each census in which the individual appears.

Some of you are capable of creating spreadsheets for this purpose. Plus there are a few things on the Internet that give suggestions, also. And/or solutions.

However, you do this, it is absolutely something that you want to do, especially if you are having difficulties or brick walls. Of course, the result will be a "census timeline" and should be incorporated into a larger timeline of historical events or other types of timelines. Your census research can become a stroke of the brush as you create a portrait of your ancestors.

Consult these sites to gain a better understanding of census tracking, see and obtain tools for your project, and be motivated to create your own solution to the challenge of working with census sources.

• What is Magi Key and does it have a census tracker?
• You could use this!!
• FamilySearch Wiki is alive and well!
• Cluster and Census Go Together.
• (Related article) Family Tree Magazine
• http://www.censusmate.com/