Compiled by Lois & Norwood Barris
This work was made possible through the cooperation of our County Clerk, Sandra Sopak, and County Historian, Michelle Henry .We were allowed to use the microfilm of the Census books held at the County Court House and filmed in Mayville in September 1966 by Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah.
Description of the census
Columns one and two numbered the dwelling, then the family. We used only the family number and tried to keep these numbers true to the original so that this work can be used as an index for researchers to find the original record. Some census takers started each town with number one, but many who enumerated more than one town numbered three or four towns consecutively. We tried to indicate at the start of each town, not beginning with number one, the town which preceded it in the numbering system. There were many anomalies within the numbering scheme for the towns.
Column three recorded the name of every person whose usual place of abode on the first day of June, 1860, was in \”this family.\” We divided this information into two columns, first the surname of the individual, then the given name. If more than one person with the same surname followed in sequence, that surname was not repeated in this record.
Three columns (4, 5, & 6) were used for the description of each individual: the age in column 4, sex (M/F) in column 5 and color- white, black, or mulatto in column 6. The color designation was omitted in this work because so few were anything but \”white,\” but we did indicate these notations of color in our last column of \”information.\”
Column seven of the census asked for the profession, occupation or trade of each person, male and female, over fifteen years of age. The census takers were not consistent in their use of this column, some indicating that housekeeper, house work, etc was an occupation to be listed but many did not. One, who had previous experience with NY State Census, listed in this column the relationship to the head of household, not required on this census. We happily included these.
Columns eight and nine included the value of estate owned- first real estate, then personal estate. To fit in our narrow column we used K to indicate thousands, a decimal number to indicated thousands, then hundreds. Two or three digits with neither a K or a decimal, indicated an actual number of dollars of estate as given.
Column ten asked for the place of birth, naming the state, territory, or country of birth for each individual. Most contained this minimal information, but in several cases, more information was given which we happily included.
Columns 11, 12 and 13 were checked if (for eleven) the individual had been married within the year, (twelve ) attended school, and (thirteen ) if over 20 years of age who cannot read or write. We wrote out this checked information in our general \”information\” column. The information on color was also included in this column.
Column fourteen of the 1860 census noted that the individual was deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper or convict. Asked for, and sometimes included, was cause of the affliction, or crime of the convict. There were very few of these; we did not always understand the information as given, but included every bit in our information column.
There is no claim for accuracy of transcription. We did the best we could. Most of the information was checked with the microfilm from the National Archives held at Reed Library on the campus ofFredonia State University College in Fredonia. The researcher should be aware that these two records, though supposedly the same information, are not identical, occasionally giving a different name and/or different sex for the same individual. In general, our record reflects the information in the books held at the court house in Mayville. In a few cases, an asterisk was added at a name and the different information from the National Archives record was included in our information column. If this was a distinct variant of the surname, this name was also indexed. The researcher is encouraged to use the family number given in this work to look up both versions of the original record.
This (US census, 1860) is the fourth in a series of extractions of census information for Chautauqua County residents, but is the first chronologically. In this series also is the New York State Census, 1865, US Census 1870, and NYS census 1875.
The information is given by town, alphabetically, starting with Arkwright. The mortality schedules for each town were transcribed and included together at the end of the town lists. At the end of the population schedule for each town was a list of deaths in that town during the year ending June 1, 1860. These lists do not appear on the National Archives microfilm. No such list was found for the Town of Westfield in the record at the county court house. These deaths lists are in a separate section starting on page 915.
An every name index is included.
Lois Barris, 2003
