1865 RI State Census Heading

1865 RI State Census Heading, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Rhode Island State Census, 1865

Always desperate for more information for my ancestor, Mercy Perkins who married Stanton Hall, I discovered this Rhode Island State census date 1 Jun 1865 and was delighted to see enumerated my 79 year old widowed Mercy living in her son-in-law's household. Mercy died in October that year, so I did not go looking for this record thinking she was already dead. 

Before I work on the listing of those in the household, I needed to look at the heading of the page and decide if I understood all the information. State census records and the information in them change with each year they were taken, so although they are wonderful records, they will take time to digest and understand.

We find that this page is for Westerly, RI on 1 June 1865 pages 143-144. I almost missed the street name of Main Street in the fourth column.

Ancestry.com. Rhode Island, State Censuses, 1865-1935 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Rhode Island State Census, 1865. Microfilm. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts.

The fine print for the description of this census at Ancestry.com tells me that the relationship to the head of household was not given and I wondered where that column went! I see that Column one and three are NOT the house numbers but that age, sex and occupation are listed. The good news for me is that a PLACE of birth was asked for and the type of school children were in (public, select or Catholic). I am not sure what a "select" school is.

Military service may be useful for other members of my large Westerly family but not in this case so it will be worthwhile looking for other people who were alive in RI in 1865. 

Now, I can go on to looking at what is given for Mercy....