-----Original Message-----
From: Sally M Bruckheimer sallybr26@...=20
<jewishgen@...>

1890 Police Census for New York City which does. This is
available >from the Municipal Archives, and it is on Ancestry.



The 1890 Police Census is a good source but understand that it only has
names and ages of people and not the same level of detail you are
familiar with in the typical Federal Census. The purpose of the Police
Census was to prove that New York City had been under-counted in the
Federal Census so they only needed to show how many people were there
not the level of detail in the Federal forms. The Police conducted it
on their beat so some sections are better done than others. Some of
the police took the information >from anyone they happened to find in
the building or if there was a on site manager of the building.

Ancestry only has a very small portion of the census loaded on their
site. According to their site they have 26 books loaded out of 894
books that survive and a total of 1008 that were produced.

The Municipal Archives in Manhattan does have the Census but they do
not have as many finding aids as the New York Public Library.
The NY Public Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue has all the 1890
Books that exist on microfilm plus several books that help you convert
addresses into pages in the census.

I am not sure but I assume the Family History libraries also have the
films available but I do not know if they have the finding aids that
the Library has.

To work with the 1890 Census you must have the address were the people
you are looking for were living in September 1890. Once you have the
address you need to check maps to figure out the cross streets and then
you look in books at the Library which will convert the address into
the details you need to find it in the Census. You get book numbers
and then pages and you search through by address. A lot of the writing
was done in pencil and is very light and hard to read. If the Police
recorded the people it is when they did that address. Some times they
did an address more than once but there is less "fill in" at the back
of the pages plie you find the Federal Census.

It is well worth working on the Census but it is slow searching and
takes a lot of prep since there is no index other than the books for
addresses at the Library.

The Police Census is an example of the type of material I work in at
the NY Public Library when I do look ups for people.

A Jordan