Footnote, Census, and FamilySearch
Dec 5th, 2009 by sharbrough
Almost a month ago, Footnote announced their intent to complete the US Federal Census.
First, a few thoughts about the project. At present, there have been 15 censuses released. The first 6 censuses (1790-1840) only list the head of household. Beginning in 1850, the census lists every name, and beginning in 1880, they show the relationship of each person to the head of the household. There are 9 “EveryName censuses,” the ones taken 1850 and after. The 1890 census was lost, except for about 6,000 names.
Footnote already has 1860 and 1930 online, and we’ll omit 1890 from this discussion, leaving 12 to do, and 6 of the EveryName censuses. But Footnote is not the only organization working on a complete census collection. The genealogy world has known for years that FamilySearch intends to create one, as well. And today, it appears that they might complete the EveryName census years before Footnote does.
The catalog for the Record Search Pilot at FamilySearch today includes the following US Federal Census information:
- 1850. Complete index and images.
- 1860. Complete index and images, provided by Footnote.com.
- 1870. Index available for all states except Kentucky, images available for all states except Kentucky, Vermont, and Virginia.
- 1880. Complete index, no images.
- 1900. Complete index and images.
- 1920. Index contains 36 states and DC, no images.
So, it’s a race, is it? Here’s the score as I see it. Image counts are my estimates, and very rough at that.
- 1850 (500,000 images). FS complete, FN not started.
- 1860 (700,000 images). Both sites share FN’s index and images.
- 1870 (1,000,000 images). FS almost done, FN not started.
- 1880 (1,300,000 images). FS has index, FN not started.
- 1890. First one to find it wins.
- 1900 (1,600,000). FS complete, FN has 7500 pages.
- 1910 (1,800,000). FS has nothing in the catalog, FN has 5,000 pages.
- 1920 (2,000,000). FS has 37 states indexed, with no images. FN has 3000 images indexed.
- 1930 (2,600,000). FS has no catalog entry. FN has 2.6 million images and is 97% complete.
FamilySearch hasn’t done 1930, 1910, or the images to 1880 and 1920.
Footnote has 1930, but nothing for 1850, 1870, 1880, and has only begun 1900, 1910, and 1920.
The question of who will finish first is of more than a sporting importance. Footnote is a subscription site, and FamilySearch is free. Footnote has recently embarked on a journey to digitize almost 10 million images and index hundreds of millions of names. FamilySearch already has 5 million of those images online, and is only missing the index for 1910 and 1930.
I can’t see the future, but it looks to me as if it’s at least possible that Footnote will complete their census collection at a time when the same records are already available elsewhere for free. That’s the great thing about a free country.
Great comparison.
To help with the estimates… FamilySearch is almost done indexing the 1920 Census. (They still have to finish Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico, and possibly a few other states. Then the indexes just need to be published online.) As I understand it, FamilySearch has an agreement with Ancestry to eventually link to their images of the 1920 Census.
Also, FamilySearch will begin indexing the 1910 Census very soon. And since the 1920 Census took about 1 1/2 years to complete, I don’t think 1910 will take much longer than that.
What am I missing here?
We are all rooting for Footnote, but why enter a market that is saturated with a particular product? It is no secret that Footnote’s content is not wholly focused on the genealogist, albeit helpful to us. It seems like a wiser course of action and planning would be to aggressively target some facet of family history that would offer a draw to their website. What doesn’t FS, Ancestry and HQ offer? How about the Civil War Pension File (not only the index)? With an option to provide copies at a rate less than that offered by NARA if allowed under their agreement? Instead of constantly reducing price to gain subscription–which also reduces their brand identity–it would enhance their brand as a provider or unique and needed products at a competitive price.
That should be their market, not finishing as an ‘also ran.’
Though I applaud FamilySearch for adding census records as a free resource, I was disappointed to find that footnote would be spending time and resources in pursuit of what is already available at ancestry. Though I’ve had minimal success finding records for my line at footnote, what I have found was wonderful… the pension images. What I’d like Footnote to pursue? Images, images, images available at no other location except on-site. I can (barely) afford subscriptions to both ancestry and footnote, but I cannot afford to travel 2000 miles, and stay there long enough to do in-depth research. I’d like to see “original” images of the earliest county records -not only marriages and wills, but also property records. Virtually all of my ancestral lines were here before 1700 and I’d definitely continue my footnote subscription if these earliest records were imaged and indexed -but not to see yet another census image. Another possibility would be to provide a full-name index to the George Washington papers. Images are available at LOC, but are definitely not indexed as well as footnote does it. I just hope they DO NOT get into the “family tree” trap Ancestry has embraced. Having said that, however, I believe there IS a place for family records that are submitted WITH PROOF of connections that would satisfy a professional genealogist. Now that is a resource that would be invaluable!
The real key to me is the search capacity and the ease at which I can find someone. Also annoying to me is the delay it takes for search results to appear. Ancestry.com has the complete collection. I want a site that has the complete collection with images. The image is essential to verify the index entry and gather additional information not indexed Census records are a basic and necessary record in the research process, so it seems only necessary that a site that wants to compete should have the complete collection especially if I have to pay for it. The competition should be in the ability of the search engine to find, sort, and spit out the results that I want. What footnote is doing with the 1930 census should be a wake up call for others in this business. When someone clicks on my granddad in the 1920 census and they get a biography and or picture of him I will be happy.
Hi,
I agree with # 2 and # 3 above. I do not understand why footnote is spending their time on census records when there are so many records that need to be scanned and available online.
I specifically mentioned the Civil War Pension images in my last footnote survey as well as suggesting fn omit additional census images at this time.
Footnote’s search engines aren’t the easiest to use either, although they have improved 100% in the past year. I will go to ancestry.com every time to locate a new census record. I’m not saying I haven’t connected the 1930 census to my dad and grandparents, but it’s not something I’m going to do for all my ancestors.
Merry Christmas!!!
The duplication of effort in all of these projects has concerned me for some time. There is so much out there that needs to be done. It is a waste of effort to re-do what has been done acceptably already. I wrote FS explaining my concern and only do indexing in the pilot project for records that aren’t available elsewhere online. Ancestry was the leader in digitizing and indexing images. Their product certainly isn’t perfect, but it gives a lot for the subscription price. I very rarely use FS or FN for census searching, but I use both a lot for other types of searches. For the investment they are making in their products they should have offered a substantial improvement to Ancestry census offerings, and they aren’t when they are “quadruplicating” the census projects. FS and FN have considerably improved the searching in some collections. FS has a great offering of state censuses and vital records. FN has very much improved the searching for city directories.
Thanks for the comparison. I have to agree with Tom above that the duplication of the projects is a concern. Lots of good work is being done but perhaps some coordination would be in the best interests of everyone.
Thanks for an interesting blog.