1850 Federal Census Allegan County, Michigan (Transcriber's Notes) ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwcensus.org/ http://www.usgwcensus.org/cenfiles/ ************************************************************************** The USGenWeb Archives provide genealogical and historical data to the general public without fee or charge of any kind. It is intended that this material not be used in a commercial manner. All submissions become part of the permanent collection. Abstracted by Jeffrey Spear from public records. Edited and reformatted by Maggie Stewart, June 2005. Submitted by Jeffrey Spear. A volunteer has not yet been found to proofread this transcription. If you are interested in doing this please contact the USGenWeb Census Project. Both above notices must remain when copied or downloaded. ___________________________________________________________ Thanks to S-K Publications for providing the census page photocopies from which this transcription was made. The complete original, handwritten census of this county is available in book form (including a typed index) from S-K Publications, PO Box 8173, Wichita KS 67208 (www.skpub.com/genie/census.html). ___________________________________________________________ NOTE: For more information on Allegan County, Michigan, Please visit the Allegan County, MIGenWeb page at http://www.rootsweb.com/~miallega/ ____________________________________________________________________________ This work follows all guidelines of the USGW Census Project, http://www.usgwcensus.org/. ____________________________________________________________________________ This is the 1850 Federal Census Allegan County, Michigan ____________________________________________________________________________ notes.txt by Jeffrey Spear, who transcribed the census. June 2005. 1850 U. S. Federal Census, Allegan County, State of Michigan. Fifteen townships in the order in which they were enumerated between July 23 and Sept. 28, 1850 by George W. Kinnicutt. Newark Township, Ganges Township, Manlius Township, Pine Plains Township, Gunplain Township, Fillmore Township, Allegan Township, Trowbridge Township, Monterey Township, Otsego Township, Watson Township, Dorr Township, Leighton Township, Wayland Township, Martin Township. The original page numbering (now called "sheet number") numbered the first page 01A and numbered the pages following it in this fashion: 01B, 02A, 02B, 03A, 03B, 04A, 04B..., etc. The pages in this census were 01A through 63B (i.e. 126 pages). A page 64A was a signed statement by the enumerator and a Justice of the Peace, Dec. 9, 1850. George Kinnicutt's title was "Assistant to the Marshall of the United States for the District of Michigan" and this was the "Seventh Census." The number of persons living in Allegan Co. was found to be 5,147. This is a transcription of an every-person-named census. Beginning in 1840 the U. S. Census would write down the name of every person living in the household. This is, of course, helpful to family researchers. This transcription has the names of all residents living in all dwellings in the County. The census enumerator's handwriting was excellent even if some of it did take a little getting used to. Much of the time there is no question about what he had written and I feel that two persons reading his handwriting would find themselves in agreement about what he had written. Very clear. In many cases where he has written a capital "L" it looks like a capital "S" and vice-versa. When he writes a name that begins in "I - s...," (like Isaac or Isadora) his "I" and "s" look exactly like a cursive "G." I found that a little confusing. His lowercase "d" sometime does not have any ascending part, making it look like an "a", but it is clearly a "d." Sometimes his lowercase "z" looks the way one is supposed to look (with a descending part) but many times this census taker wrote what looks like the beginning of a small "s" but then makes a small "z" in the space underneath. You get used to "z"-containing names to have this makeshift "z" in them. Starting on page 57A in Wayland Township, there are 201 Native Americans enumerated. There is no difficulty in transcribing these names. The census taker has spelled out clearly the names and he even broke the names into syllables that make them that much easier to read. These Native Americans are remnants of the Ottawa and Pottawattomie tribes that had been displaced from their lands but that were collected together and residents of the Indian Mission operated by the Rev. James Selkrig starting in 1836. End of File.