1850 Census Record Research

The 1850 Census for Ionia County is now online.  Actual scanned images of the census have been placed  in the USGenWeb Archives, as part of the USGenWeb Archives Census Project.  Images are arranged by page number. 

Click here for an 1850 Census Form

In the 1850 Federal census you can find the following information:

the name, age, and sex of each individual in the household

whether each individual was white, black, or mulatto

the profession, occupation, or trade of each individual over 15

the value of the real estate owned by each individual

each individual's state, territory, or country of birth

whether or not an individual was married within the year

whether or not an individual attended school within the year

whether or not an individual can read and write, if over 20

whether an individual is deaf, dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, a pauper, or a convict.

The following census films are available at the Ionia Community Library (formerly Hall-Fowler Memorial Library) in Ionia.

1850 Census - 7 rolls - covering NY (Clinton and Jefferson Counties) Michigan (Ionia County)

Federal Mortality Schedules exist for the years 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880.

Mortality schedules counted the number of deaths that occurred in the year before the census was taken, and exist for the 1850 through 1880 censuses. This means that there are only four schedules currently available for the U.S. census. A mortality schedule lists the individual's name, age, sex, occupation, cause of death, date of death, and place of death by county.

A copy of the Ionia County Mortality Index is available as part of CD 164, "Death Records, Mortality Records 1850-1880 available from Broderbund Software.

This index was also published in the Ionia County Genealogical Society Newsletter, Volume 3 - Number 2, April-June 1998.

Last update December 28, 2007