Using the New York State Census on Archives.com

The censuses are a great resource for finding your ancestors in the U.S., but what about state censuses? The U.S. Federal Census is taken every 10 years and enumerates the whole United States with the first census being taken in 1790. The 1940 U.S. Census is the most recent census available to search online.  

Often individual states would conduct their own censuses that would take place in the off years between the federal censuses. New York has state censuses for 1892, 1915 and 1925 which are all searchable online through Archives.com.

The 1915 and 1925 New York State Censuses have great information that could help you with your genealogical research. These two censuses are very similar and include more information than the 1892 census which does not distinguish households, nor denote the relationship of individuals to one another.

The 1915 and 1925 censuses do however contain a lot of the information you are used to seeing in the later federal censuses such as relationship to head of household, age, employment status, and birth country. Birth country is a great field to look at because if your ancestor was not born in the U.S. it can tell you where they were born and will also have the number of years they have been in the United States. This information can then help you track down when they arrived and help you find more immigration and naturalization records which will help further track down your ancestors whereabouts before these censuses were taken.

For more detail on the New York State Censuses available on Archives.com, watch the following tutorial with our expert Amy Johnson Crow: