SH Archive Fire destroyed 1890 US Census

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Now I'm getting paranoid about anything that seems out of place or not right. Anyway I do genealogy work, just for family and the 1890 US census is missing. Yes there was a fire in 1921 and get this, oh they all weren't totally destroyed however.........

Even after the outcry in 1921, thirteen years later the Census Bureau destroyed the remaining 1890 schedules.

the only picture of the fire ..oh the horror, what the hell is this suppose to be....

the fate of the 1890 census

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[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2018-09-18 23:03:42
Reaction Score: 6

LOL. Next thing you are gonna look at the US Patent Office, and then there will be no looking back

 

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Username: MinLo66
Date: 2018-10-16 12:56:42
Reaction Score: 2

the only picture of the fire ..oh the horror, what the hell is this suppose to be....

View attachment 9249

the fate of the 1890 census

This is absolutely astonishing...

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2019-05-29 10:02:11
Reaction Score: 11

Some things appear to be way too convenient:

• “I lost her in the 1890 census!” If you’ve ever had cause to say this, you’re not alone. Thousands of family history researchers curse the loss of almost the entire 1890 US census. After learning of its destruction due to a fire nearly a century ago, they quickly begin to “skip that year” in their record searches, turning instead to city directories, tax records and other substitutes that might name an ancestor during those key years between 1880 and 1900.
• Unfortunately, the 1890 census isn’t the only major US record set that’s gone up in smoke. Other conflagrations have burned gaping holes in the collective historical record. Most notably: military service records for more than 16 million Americans and passenger records for a half-century of arrivals to New York City. Entire courthouse collections have been consumed, too, including vital records, probate files, deeds, court cases and more.

The missing 1890 census isn’t as simple as “it was lost in a fire.” Actually, different parts of the census burned in not one, but two fires. After the second and more devastating fire, the surviving waterlogged records were left neglected, then quietly destroyed years later by government administrators.

Entire article:

• Holes in History: The 1890 Census Fire - Family Tree

And I’ll top it off with a picture of a newspaper article I ran into.

Meanwhile, we are being told otherwise:

• 1790-1930 U.S. Census Records Available Free | Internet Archive Blogs

 

[Archive]

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Username: Ice Nine
Date: 2019-05-29 14:11:05
Reaction Score: 6

Hi KD, yes I started a thread about this awhile ago. Fire destroyed 1890 US Census

Thanks for the link to the microfilm records, they are seemingly impossible to read, but it will be fun to go through them at my leisure, I do believe there are some I have never been able to find, mostly due to Ancestrydotcom now owning the original copies. Which torques my shorts big time. Talk about stolen history, they now own public records and we have to pay them to see what should be free to all citizens of our country.

Ancestry.com Is In Cahoots With Public Records Agencies,
"Reclaim the Records says in its lawsuit against the New York Department of Health, which manages the death index, that it made its request before Ancestry but was met with a slow response from the state and quoted a questionably high cost to retrieve them. It is now suing for documents “shedding light on why and how [the Department of Health] was able to respond to Ancestry.com’s request for the Death Index microfiche, with the production of digitized copies” in such a short period while the group’s request for the same records was delayed.

Reclaim the Records’ mission is to petition state, federal, and city record keepers to hand over historical archives that are of interest to genealogists and put them on the internet for people to see for free. Things like death records and marriage certificates over 50 years old are — legally — open to the public, but often require showing up at the building where the records are kept.

“Too many government agencies and archives have long treated genealogists as if we were asking them for a favor when we ask to see their records — our records — rather than recognizing their responsibilities to the public under the law,” the group, which is funded by donations, states on its website.

Companies like Ancestry.com do the exact same thing, but Ganz wants those public records online for free — not behind a paywall"

I've been doing genealogy for years now and it really hasn't hampered my searching much, you can fill in the blanks pretty well with earlier and later census. And I have been able to find remarkable things without paying for them by myself and help from others doing the same.

Here is one picture of "the horror and devastation" and even after the fire, the mishandling of the remaining records was appalling.

Newspaper photographs captured the scene after the devastating fire and pointed out the need for safe storage of national records.

I don't know if the fire was caused for nefarious reasons, but the aftermath and handling of the records was sure a testament to ineptitude.

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2019-05-29 18:11:24
Reaction Score: 1

Opps. I joined it into your thread. You’ e experienced the shortness of my attention span. Sorry about that.

Would be interesting to find out more about that Oregonian 1790-1920 article, and why they published what they did.

 

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Username: twigpin
Date: 2019-12-25 01:30:47
Reaction Score: 0

Glad to see others doing family tree work. Yes, destroyed records are at the top of my 'peeve list'. I wonder if they weren't trying to just prevent a lot of vets from getting a pension in the future. My dad had a horrible time getting his, and he was in service two rounds.