A project I’ve taken on recently is researching additional information on my maternal family line so that I can complete an application to join the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage (SDUSMP) lineage society. Though I’ve made a great deal of progress, there is still much work to be done.
One of the goals of the application is to identify an honored ancestor and to show proof of their enslavement. Since I have not found the document that directly states his enslavement, I’ve been gathering information that would assist me in proving his enslavement using negative evidence.
In order to accomplish this task, I’ve started extracting information from the 1850 and 1860 US Federal Census records, including the Slave Schedules for both years for the two counties where they possible lived in Georgia. Though the process has been tedious, I’ve made a great of progress in a short time thanks to the information shared by Connie Knox of Genealogy TV in her great webinar on YouTube titled “Extract U.S. Census Data into Excel to Find Your Ancestors in Your Family History Fast“. The process outlined in her video allows you to copy all of the transcribed information from the census and paste it into your preferred spreadsheet program.
Though you have the ability to do this from any browser, Chrome has been my go to, especially since I’m using Google Sheets as my spreadsheet program. I wanted to share my process in extracting the information in the hope that it may help someone else in their efforts.
Below are the steps that I use to extract the information from census. I use Ancestry / Ancestry Library Edition to copy the census and Google Sheets as my spreadsheet program.
- I open a new Google Sheet start a new workbook for my project. I give it an informative title – !Morgan County 1850 Free Population Schedule. Adding the exclamation point to the front of the title will bring file to the top of the folder. I learned this great tip in the my 2024 SLIG class “Beyond the Brick Wall: Strategies for Pre-1850 U.S. Research”. Its a small change that has made a big difference.
- Once the workbook is created, I then create the following three sheets:
- Notes – Provides information on the project, including start and completion dates and any information to note.
- CleanUp – This is the landing page for newly copied census information so that I can prepare it to be added to the main spreadsheet. Here I add additional information and organize the information so it be ready to add to my main spreadsheet.
- Main Spreadsheet – The consolidated / compiled information copied/extracted from Census records. I add the filter functionality so that I can source and pull out whatever information I am seeking. I usually name it the same name as the records I’m extracting.
- Notes – Provides information on the project, including start and completion dates and any information to note.
- Once the workbook is created, I then create the following three sheets:
- I navigate to the browsing section for the 1850 Census. There are several ways to do this.
- Click on U.S. Federal Census Collection under the Census & voter lists section of the Explore by collection. This is right next to the search boxes on the main Search page.
- You can also click View All on the right (next to View All) to open up the Ancestry Catalog.
- Lastly, you can also do this from the navigation on the top. Click Search and then select Card Catalog. Once in the Card Catalog, you can type 1850 Federal Census in the Title search.
. - Click on U.S. Federal Census Collection under the Census & voter lists section of the Explore by collection. This is right next to the search boxes on the main Search page.
- For this example, I’m using the 1850 Free Population Schedule for Morgan County, Georgia. Once there, I make note of how the census for that County is subdivided. Usually for Georgia, the subdivisions for counties are the militia districts. Just so you are aware – the Federal Census in its documentation refers to the subdivisions as minor civil divisions. In the case of the 1850 Census for Morgan County, Georgia, all of the County was listed as District 62, resulting in 87 pages for the Free Population Schedule.
. - Once I get to the first page, I click on the icon on the bottom with the image of a person with 3 lines next to them to display the transcribed data. The official name for this is the Toggle Index Panel.
. - Then I click in the area with the transcribe text and using the keyword shortcut, I Select All (CTRL + A – hold the Ctrl button and hit the A key on the keyboard.) All of the information on the page should highlight like the image under #6.
. - Now I am able to copy the information using the keyboard shortcut (CTRL + C).
. - I then open my Google sheet and select a cell in the 3rd column. Then I hit the Paste Special keyboard shortcut (SHIFT + CTRL + V). You can also right click and select Paste Special – Values Only.
. - Once I do the keyboard shortcut, the information is displayed. Note: If you use the regular paste option, the information will lose formatting and it will be in a single column.
. - Once the information is displayed, I then add the militia district to the first column and the image number in the next column.
. - Using the keyboard shortcut (CTRL + D), I can duplicate the militia district and page number for all of the rows.
. - After that information is added, I make other changes to the information, like changing ages 11/12 to 11 mths. Once all of the changes are made, I copy the header row from the census and paste it in the 3rd column Main sheet. I add headers in the first column for the militia district and the second column for the image page number.
. - Once the headers are in place, I then use the keyboard shortcut for Select All (CTRL + A) and then click on my Main sheet and use the Paste Special keyboard Shortcut (SHIFT + CTRL + V) to paste the information in the format already present in the spreadsheet its being copied to. I enjoy using the Georgia font size 12 so when I copy the information over, it will appear in that format.
. - Once the first page is setup in the format that I like, I would then spend time copying and pasting the information from the census, cleaning up the data and then copying multiple pages to the Main sheet so I’m not doing it one page at a time.
- The ultimate goal for this project to be able to filter the information from the free population and slave schedules for the 1850 and 1860 Censuses for counties where I think my ancestors were enslaved. It is a tedious undertaking but, in my opinion, a necessary step in my uncovering more information about my ancestors.
I hope that this post is a great supplement to the information learned from watching’s Connie Knox’s video. I frequently utilize this process whenever I need to extract a large amount of data. Hopefully you will find some use for the process too. I know its a bit long but I wanted to be as detailed as possible to help you through this process.
Let me know in the comments if you try out this method.
Happy searching!!
The Past is Prologue 