New Jersey State Census, 1905 - FamilySearch Historical Records

United States New Jersey

What is in the Collection?
This collection is an index of the 1905 Census of New Jersey including all residents in all counties.

The state of New Jersey took a state census every 10 years, beginning in 1855 and continuing through 1915. The census was compiled to obtain a count of the population of the state to determine how many representatives would be sent to Congress.

The information in this record is generally reliable. However, use the information with some caution, since the information may have been given to a census taker by any member of the family or by a neighbor. Some information may have been incorrect or deliberately falsified.

What Can this Collection Tell Me?
The census forms asked for the following information:


 * Name
 * Residence
 * Gender
 * Race
 * Date of birth
 * Age
 * Marital status
 * Birthplace
 * Birthplaces of parents
 * Citizenship
 * Occupation
 * Literacy
 * Home ownership

Not all information contained in the original census records have been indexed. This collection will usually contain the following information:

How Do I Search the Collection?
To begin your search it is helpful to know:
 * The name of your ancestor
 * The approximate age or birth year of your ancestor
 * The residence of your ancestor
 * The names of other family members and their relationships

Search by Name by visiting the Collection Page: Fill in the requested information on the initial search page. This search will return a list of possible matches. Compare the information about the individuals in the list to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct family or person. You may need to compare the information about more than one person to find your ancestor. Keep in mind:


 * There may be more than one person in the records with the same name.
 * You may not be sure of your own ancestor’s name.
 * Your ancestor may have used different names, or variations of their name, throughout their life.
 * If your ancestor used an alias or a nickname, be sure to check for those alternate names.
 * Even though these indexes are very accurate they may still contain inaccuracies, such as altered spellings, misinterpretations, and optical character recognition errors if the information was scanned.

For tips about searching on-line collections see the on-line article FamilySearch Search Tips and Tricks.

What Do I Do Next?
When you have located your ancestor in the census, carefully evaluate each piece of information about them. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details that can lead you to other records about your ancestors. Print or download a copy of the record, or extract the genealogical information needed.

I Found Who I was Looking for, What Now?

 * Use the age listed to determine an approximate birth date.
 * Use the race information to find records related to that ethnicity such as records of the Freedman’s Bureau of Indian censuses.
 * If they are foreign born, look for immigration and naturalization records.
 * It is often helpful to extract the information on all families with the same surname in the same general area. If the surname is uncommon, it is likely that those living in the same area were related.
 * Be sure to extract all families before you look at other records. The relationships given will help you to organize family groups. The family groupings will help you identify related families when you discover additional information in other records.
 * Married family members may have lived nearby but in a separate household so you may want to search an entire town, neighboring towns, or even a county.
 * You may be able to identify an earlier generation if elderly parents were living with or close by a married child.
 * You may be able to identify a younger generation if a young married couple still lived with one of their sets of parents.
 * Additional searches may be needed to locate all members of a particular family in the census.
 * You should also be aware that the census may identify persons for whom other records do not exist.

I Can't Find Who I'm Looking for, What Now?

 * Look for variant spellings of the names. You should also look for alias names, nicknames and abbreviated names.
 * Look for a different index. Local genealogical and historical societies often have indexes to local records.
 * Search the indexes and records of nearby localities.
 * Try alternative search methods such as only filling in the surname search box (or the given name search box) on the landing page leaving the other box empty and then click on search. This should return a list of everyone with that particular name. You could then browse the list for individuals that may be your ancestor.
 * There is also the possibility that a family was missed in the census.

For a summary of this information see the wiki article: United States, How to Use the Records Summary (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Citing this Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image.

Collection Citation

Record Citation (or citation for the index entry):