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1880 Census of Darien, CT Please read the introduction before you begin searching. Click here to begin browsing the census index pages one by one or click here to search for the name of your ancestor. If you find your ancestors in these pages, please email Barbara Kaye and I will try to identify the maiden name of the wife. Check http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=gen1775 to see whether your ancestor is listed in the online Stamford Families database. This database shows parents, spouses and children, and for some, shows ancestors back to the original emmigrant ancestor with that surname. The 1880 census was begun on June 1, 1880. It was the first census to list the relationship of each resident in a household to the head of that household and the first to list the birthplace of both parents. Each household has a separate number and each family has a separate number. If a second family lives within the same household as another family, they will be listed under the household number of the first family living there. This might mean that the second family in the same household were merely tenants and were not related at all. Also, there were many inconsistencies in the numbering made by the census enumerators, so relationships must not be assumed if a family has the same number as the one next to it. Most of the names were legible, but I checked the illegible ones against the names in cemetery inscriptions and vital records and previous censuses to attempt to transcribe each name accurately, although there are some names that were not familiar to me. Some of those are best guesses, mostly based on country of origin. Some first names seemed to have been spelled at the discretion of the enumerator. I used a consistent spelling for the following names: Alice, Bertha, Charlotte, Elizabeth, Margaret, Frederick, Rufus and Wilbur. Where the enumerator used abbreviations, I spelled out the following names: Charles, James, Sylvester and William. By 1880, most people had middle names. Some would use their whole middle name, but most used only a middle initial. Often these middle initials would be recorded or transcribed incorrectly by the census enumerator. In addition, some people would switch the first and middle names given to them at birth. Searching for such people can be frustrating. Try your searches several ways, including spelling out all three names, first middle initial last, name without any middle name or initial, or substitute the middle name for the first name. Where the original records listed only the first surname and others in a household with that surname are shown with only a first name, I have added surnames to each entry to aid in electronic searches. Where the original records list the surname first, I have shown the names as First Middle Initial Last. I also took the liberty of keeping families together on one page by moving members of the same family from the next page to the page before. There were other catergories included in the questions asked by the census enumerator, which I did not include because most of the entries were blank. One question asked whether a person had a health condition which might prevent them from regular activities and whether they were blind, deaf and mute, an "idiot" or insane. Although I tried hard not to create new errors, there will always be errors in census records. Errors are made when people lied about their age, census enumerators wrote illegibly on the forms, people guessed other peoples' ages, names or birthplace, or census enumerators misunderstood what people told them. |