In January 1921, a fire consumed the Commerce Building in Washington, DC. Fire, smoke and water damage destroyed a substantial portion of 1890 census returns, leading to an almost total loss of the record set.
Of the nearly 63 million people recorded in the census, only about 6,160 total names were spared the fire and flood. The surviving records—hardly enough to cover even just a couple of counties—cover small parts of Alabama, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota and Texas.
Note that, though the main enumeration has been lost, part of a supplemental veterans’ schedule from 1890 remains. The Civil War Union veterans and widows census survives for states that are alphabetically from Kentucky to Wyoming. You can find surviving…
