CENSUS RECORDS

The U.S. census will help you build your family tree. With 70 million names, the census is the best place to find basic information about your relatives. Start you search by filling in the form below. The search box below will search U.S. Federal Census records as well as Birth, Marriage, death records and historical newspapers. The search results will be displayed on Ancestry.com's website.

Federal censuses in Rhode Island began in 1790 and continued every ten years thereafter. They are currently available through 1920 (except for the mostly destroyed 1890 census). All are indexed except for 1910. Prior to statehood Rhode Island took several censuses for a variety of purposes. Many are supplemented by the freemen's lists between 1747–55. The originals and a card index are at the Rhode Island State Archives and have been published in Bruce C. MacGunnigle, Rhode Island Freemen, 1747–1755 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1977). The earliest extant census is for 1730, although only Portsmouth and part of South Kingston returns have been located; see Mildred Mosher Chamberlain's article in Rhode Island Roots 7 (1981): 16–17 and 10 (1984):1. The 1774 census has survived for nearly all towns and was indexed and published. Only New Shoreham (Block Island) is missing. Original returns are at the Rhode Island State Archives and are published in John R. Bartlett's Census of the Inhabitants of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (1858; reprint; Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1969). The last census before the federal censuses begin is indexed in Jay Mack Holbrook Rhode Island 1782 Census (Oxford, Mass.: Holbrook Research Institute, 1979). Returns for some of the towns were lost. This is a reconstructed census using original manuscripts and tax lists to replace those lost records. Returns for North Providence and Smithfield are not extant.
Rhode Island is the only New England state with extensive state census records taken every ten years between 1865–1935 (1895 is missing). Similar to the federal census, the 1865 state census is microfilmed and every-name indexed at the Rhode Island Historical Society. The 1875, 1885, 1905, 1915, 1925, and 1935 census records are at Rhode Island State Archives with an index in process.

Rhode Island Research Sources

Andrews, Charles M. The Colonial Period of American History. 2 vols. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1938.
Fiske, Jane Fletcher. "Genealogical Research in Rhode Island." New England Historical and Genealogical Register 136 (July 1982): 173–219. (It is reprinted in Ralph J. Crandall, ed., Genealogical Research in New England. [Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1984].)
Sperry, Kip. Rhode Island Sources for Family Historians and Genealogists. Logan, Utah: Everton Publishers, 1986.

Archives, Libraries and Societies
Rhode Island State Archives, 337 Westminster Street, Providence, RI 02903

Rhode Island Historical Society/Library, 110 Benevolent Street, Providence, RI 02906