Source Information

Ancestry.com. Missouri, U.S., State Census Collection, 1844-1881 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.
Original data: Missouri State Censuses. Jefferson City, MO, USA: Missouri State Archives.

About Missouri, U.S., State Census Collection, 1844-1881

Missouri conducted several state and territorial censuses. However, very few of the schedules have survived. This database contains an index to, with corresponding images of, several of the remaining schedules. Including about a fifth of Missouri's counties, the 1876 census is the largest set of the records. The following is a list of the counties and years covered in this database.

  • 1844: Callaway
  • 1856: Audrain
  • 1857-1858: St. Louis
  • 1868-1869: Cape Girardeau, Franklin
  • 1873: Cole (Jefferson City)
  • 1876: Atchison, Benton, Butler, Callaway, Cape Girardeau, Carroll, Cass, Christian, Daviess, Franklin, Gasconade, Greene, Holt, Howard, Madison, McDonald, Moniteau, Montgomery, Osage, Perry, Phelps, Reynolds, Ripley, St Francois, Stone, Texas, Webster, Worth
  • 1880: Cass (Big Creek, Pleasant Hill, City of Pleasant Hill)
  • 1881: Reynolds (these records are actually land list assessment records)

Information contained in this index includes:

  • Name
  • Gender
  • County of enumeration
  • Marital status
  • Race
  • Age
  • Birth location (1857 only)

Additional information about an individual may be found by viewing the corresponding image.

The 1876 census recorded ages in categories according to race, gender, and age-span. Sections were also available to indicate whether a person was deaf and dumb, blind, or insane. In addition, information regarding people's live stock and agricultural products was recorded.

About State Censuses:

State censuses were often taken in years between the federal censuses. In some places, local censuses were designed to collect specific data, such as the financial strengths and needs of communities; tallies of school-age children and potential school populations to predict needs for teachers and facilities; censuses of military strength, cavalry horse resources, and grain storage; enumeration for revenue assessment and urban planning; and lists to monitor African Americans moving into the northern cities.

Taken from Szucs, Loretto Dennis, "Research in Census Records." In The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy, ed. Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking (Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1997).