The 1890 U.S. Census was destroyed by fire, and genealogists have long suffered from "record deficiency" as a result. Indeed, it can often be difficult to find anyone between 1880 and 1900. Now a new CD compiled by the Fort Worth Genealogical Society serves as a census substitute.
The CD does not list all the names of those who should have been in the census records. However, it does list many thousands of Tarrant County residents of the year 1890. The information all came from other paper records that these residents left behind.
The Fort Worth Genealogical Society project has now been able to reconstruct many of Tarrant County's 1890 resident rolls. The project co-coordinators, Helen McKelvy Markgraf Stephens and Rob Yoder, managed the efforts of many volunteers who gathered data from many places.
"We did not reconstruct a census per se," Rob Yoder said. "We gathered information so you can reconstruct it in your mind, say to yourself, 'My relatives must have been here.'"
You can read more about this new CD in an article written by Bryon Okada and published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at http://www.star-telegram.com/metro_news/story/132916.html. Ordering instructions for the new CD are in also in the Star-Telegram article.
