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AF-1083: Navigating the 1890 Census Gap | Ancestral Findings Podcast

Release Date: 05/06/2025

AF-1084: Inside the 1900 Census | Ancestral Findings Podcast

Ancestral Findings - Genealogy Podcast

The 1900 U.S. Census marks the beginning of a new era. It was the first census of the 20th century—and it knew it. By 1900, America had changed dramatically. Cities were growing faster than ever. Immigrants from Italy, Poland, Russia, and other parts of Eastern Europe were arriving in record numbers. The American frontier was nearly closed. Families were moving, industries were booming, and the pace of life had quickened. This census tried to capture all of that. And for genealogists, it’s one of the richest federal records available. With just one census page, you can estimate a...

AF-1083: Navigating the 1890 Census Gap | Ancestral Findings Podcast

Ancestral Findings - Genealogy Podcast

The 1890 census may be gone, but your ancestors aren’t. This worksheet aims to help you rebuild the missing years—one clue at a time. Whether your ancestors were settling in a new state, welcoming children, remarrying, or passing on, they left traces in other records. This worksheet gives you a place to follow those trails, ask the right questions, and close the gap between 1880 and 1900. Podcast Notes: Ancestral Findings Podcast: This Week's Free Genealogy Lookups: Genealogy Giveaway: Genealogy eBooks: Follow Along: Support Ancestral Findings: #Genealogy...

AF-1082: Inside the 1890 Census | Ancestral Findings Podcast

Ancestral Findings - Genealogy Podcast

The 1890 U.S. Census is one of the most heartbreaking gaps in American records. It leaves a missing chapter for family historians—twenty years between 1880 and 1900 when so much changed. Children grew up and left home, elders passed on, families relocated, and new generations were born. But the record meant to capture it all is mostly gone. The story of how we lost the 1890 census and how we’ve learned to work around it still has much to teach us. Podcast Notes: Ancestral Findings Podcast: This Week's Free Genealogy Lookups: Genealogy Giveaway: Genealogy eBooks: Follow Along: ...

AF-1081: South Seas Plantation on Captiva Island: Postcards from the Past

Ancestral Findings - Genealogy Podcast

I really love looking at and collecting postcards—especially vintage postcards. Here at Ancestral Findings, I’ve collected thousands and thousands of them over the years. People have sent me postcards from their hometowns, old pictures of places that meant something to them, and scenes from all across the country—and it’s been exciting to receive each and every one of them. So, I decided to set aside a little time to talk about some of these postcards and the stories they tell. I’m calling it . It’s not going to be a continuous project—just something I’ll add to now and...

AF-1080: Mastering the 1880 Census for Family Historians | Ancestral Findings Podcast

Ancestral Findings - Genealogy Podcast

The 1880 census is one of my favorite records—not just because of what it tells us, but because of what it helps us feel. This is the first census where we can see families take shape on paper. For the first time, we know how everyone in the household is related to each other. We can watch grandparents living with grown children, sons-in-law starting new farms, and widowed mothers moving in with their daughters. It’s where the people we’ve been tracing start to become real. When I first found my great-great-grandfather in the 1880 census, I expected just the usual names and ages....

AF-1079: Inside the 1880 Census | Ancestral Findings Podcast

Ancestral Findings - Genealogy Podcast

When people talk about the U.S. Census, most think of it as just a headcount. But by 1880, the census had become something far more powerful. It wasn’t just about population totals or determining how many representatives each state should send to Congress—although that was still its constitutional purpose. The 1880 census was the most detailed snapshot of American life ever taken up to that point. It didn’t just tell the government how many people were living in the country. It told them who those people were, what they did, their challenges, and where the country was headed. For family...

AF-1078: Tracing Formerly Enslaved Ancestors: A Companion to the 1870 Census

Ancestral Findings - Genealogy Podcast

The 1870 U.S. Census is a milestone for many family historians. For those tracing African American ancestry, it often marks the very first time their ancestors appear in a public federal record by name. The names are handwritten clearly on the page—no longer separated, omitted, or counted as property. For the first time, individuals who were born into slavery are seen on equal footing with every other American, listed not as someone’s possession but as someone’s parent, spouse, child, worker, or head of household. But the moment of discovery in 1870 almost always leads to a question:...

AF-1077: Inside the 1870 Census | Ancestral Findings Podcast

Ancestral Findings - Genealogy Podcast

The 1870 U.S. Census might be one of the most meaningful records ever created in the history of the country. For the first time, every person—Black, white, free-born, formerly enslaved, immigrant, farmer, child, war widow—was recorded by name on the main schedule. No longer confined to tally marks or separated into slave schedules, formerly enslaved individuals finally had their names written down as citizens. This was the country’s first full census after the Civil War. Reconstruction was underway, freedmen’s schools and churches were forming, and the railroad was pushing west. The...

AF-1076: Richard Mentor Johnson: A Controversial Hero

Ancestral Findings - Genealogy Podcast

As we continue through our The Forgotten Seconds series—exploring the lives of vice presidents who never became president—we now turn to one of the most unusual figures ever to hold the office. Richard Mentor Johnson, a frontier-born politician from Kentucky, lived a life of contradictions. Celebrated as a hero of the War of 1812 and known for his plain appeal to common voters, he was also scorned by many in his party for his controversial personal life and lack of discipline while in office. Though he rose to the second-highest post in the nation, Johnson never reached the presidency, and...

AF-1075: The Sacrifices of Daniel D. Tompkins | Ancestral Findings Podcast

Ancestral Findings - Genealogy Podcast

Daniel D. Tompkins was born on June 21, 1774, in the town of Scarsdale in Westchester County, New York. He came into a world still under British rule, just two years before the colonies would declare their independence. His family roots traced back to England, where the name Tompkins derived from a form of “Little Thomas’s son,” a patronymic surname that can be found as far back as the 1300s in Kent. The Tompkins family likely came to the American colonies in the mid-1600s during the great wave of English migration to the New World. His father, Jonathan Griffin Tompkins, born in 1729,...

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