CENSUS RECORDS

Federal censuses began for the state of Mississippi in 1820 and continued every ten years thereafter. They are currently available through 1920 (excepting the mostly destroyed 1890 census). All are indexed in at least one format. Enumerations for Pike County are missing for 1830, but some printed indexes have used extant tax records as supplements. Schedules are also missing for Hancock, Sunflower, and Washington counties in 1860.
Territorial census reports were authorized by the legislature of Mississippi Territory at different intervals from 1798 until 1817. A useful guide to territorial census information is Norman E. Gillis, Early Inhabitants of the Natchez District (Shreveport, La.: the author, 1963). An early census of the Natchez District, taken in 1792 from the Spanish provincial records, has been printed in Dunbar Rowland, History of Mississippi, The Heart of the South, 4 vols. (Chicago: S. J. Clark Publishing Co., 1925). Other censuses from the Spanish colonial period (1784, 1787, 1788, and 1794) can be found in the Papeles Procedentes de Cuba (The Cuban Papers) located at the General Archives of the Indies in Seville, Spain. See Roscoe R. Hill, Descriptive Catalogue of the Documents Relating to the History of the United States in the Papeles Procedentes de Cuba (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1916).

Mississippi Research Sources

Archives, Libraries and Societies
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, War Memorial Building, 120 North State Street, P.O. Box 571, Jackson, MS 39205-0571

Mississippi Historical Society, 100 South State Street, Jackson, MS 39205

Mississippi Public Health Statistics
Vital Records Information
2423 North State Street
P.O. Box 1700
Jackson, MS 39215-1700
Tel: 601-576-7960
Fax: 601-576-7505
http://www.msdh.state.ms.us/ochs/phs/default.htm

Mississippi Department of Archives and History War Memorial Building
120 North State Street
P.O. Box 571
Jackson, MS 39205-0571
Tel: 601-359-6850
Fax: 601-359-6975
Email: webmaster@mdah.state.ms.us
http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/

Family Research Association of Mississippi
P.O. Box 13334
Jackson, MS 39236-3334

Mississippi Historical Society
P.O. Box 571
Jackson, MS 39205-0571
http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/mhistsoc.html

Mississippi USGenWeb Project
http://www.rootsweb.com/~msgenweb/

Christine's Genealogy Website
http://ccharity.com/

Center for the Study of Southern Culture
University of Mississippi
University, MS 38677
Tel: 601-232-5993
Fax: 601-232-5814
http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/south/index.html