Mills County, Iowa
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1885 Iowa State Census Records
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Notes for the 1885 Census
Written by Cay Merryman, transcriber of the Census.
THE 1885 IOWA STATE CENSUS ENUMERATIONS
Information gathered in the 1885 Iowa State Census:
NAME
AGE
SEX - M or F
COLOR - Because of the location of this county, the question of color would seldom, if ever, be a consideration, so this category was not recorded.
MARITAL STATUS - As a general rule only those who were married or widowed are recorded; the rest are single.
OCCUPATION - Often the wife has the occupation of 'keeping house' which was not transcribed.
ADDRESS - No addresses were copied, but are available on a lookup basis.
BORN IN IOWA - When possible I tried to read the county where born. The census book is bound so tightly that the last two or three letters are sometimes all that can be seen; sometimes nothing shows.
The enumerators in some townships seemed to disregard instructions and entered Iowa instead of the county name... USE WITH CAUTION
FOREIGN OR NATIVE BORN - USE WITH CAUTION Sometimes the writing is faint; sometimes the page is blotted; sometimes the transcriber probably missed it. Errors have already been found in what is recorded.
Foreign born parents are indicated F - F or F - -- N if birthplace of mother is native; -- - F or N - F if father's birthplace is native and mother is foreign born.
I had no one to proof read my transcribing and it is difficult to see your own mistakes. If there is a question or if someone disputes the information, please let me know and I will certainly try to correct the errors.
Transcribed and submitted by Cay Merryman
Copyright © 1998 and may be reproduced only with written permission.