Since the U.S. Constitution requires a census to adjust the distribution of elected Congressional Representatives by States, the US Census was taken first in 1790 and every decade thereafter. The records are open to the public at the U.S. Archives and their regional offices. The law prohibits release of census data unless it is over 70 years old. Therefore, the public may access only the census from 1790 to 1920. Nearly all of the 1890 census was destroyed by fire, but there are a few scattered records.

This site is dedicated to those original census takers and today's diligent CARTER researchers who have given so freely of their time and effort so that we might enjoy the benefits of their labors. Our CARTER researchers/transcribers are acknowledged for these efforts with their names enrolled in the . Let us salute their dedication and hard work. The site is not meant to replace the postings of the CARTER researchers, but to  supplement their efforts.

Dedicated CARTER researchers have laboriously transcribed the census data for CARTER families for many census years and states and posted them to the CARTER mailing list. The purpose of this site is to "warehouse" these data on-line for everyone. Enjoy!

The Site Status page indicates which records are on-line and what records are needed.

Navigation tips:

By clicking on the Census Year List above, you will be taken to a page listing the years of the census. (As of 14 feb 1999, only 1790-1810 Census are activated).

Clicking on the Year of interest will take you to another List of States surveyed during that Years's census.

Finally, clicking on the state will take you to the actual census transcription. Large lists many be broken into several lists based on first names of the Carter Family: i.e., "A-H", "I-N", and "P-Z". Once there, you may use your browser search function to find a particular individual; i.e., use FIND "Richard R". The browser will take you to the appropriate listing if found.

Inside a census , there will be navigation buttons to move among the different alphabetical parts of the census (not implemented), move to another state in that same year (not implemented), or moving to the same state in the (previous, next) census years (not implemented). Click on the Census Year on a census page to return to the list of states for that year. Click on the top tricolor bar to go to the bottom of a page and vise versa. A search capability has also been implemented.

By the way, the states are abbreviated using the USPS two-letter format;i.e., TX = Texas. By highlighting records of interest, you may copy by right clicking on the items of interest and selecting copy. Then open your word processor application (Word, Notepad, etc.), open a new document and then select paste. Save the data with your own title for the data.