Mills County, Iowa
1885 Iowa State Census Records

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.