Wake County, NC 1850 Federal Census--Acknowledgments and Notes

This Census was transcribed by Jason M. Bray, jmbray@juno.com, for the USGenWeb Census Project,
http://www.usgenweb.org/census. 

Copyright 1999 by Jason M. Bray

USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or
presentation by any other organization or persons.  Persons or organizations desiring to use
this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative
of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent.

Thanks to Dr. John F. Schunk of S-K Publications for providing the census page photocopies from
which this transcription was made.  The complete original, handwritten census of this county is
available in book form (including a typed index) from S-K Publications, PO Box 8173, Wichita KS
67208-0173 (http://www.skpub.com/genie/census.html).

Census Year    1850
Microfilm #    432-647
State          North Carolina
County         Wake

In conducting the Census one of the enumerators, H. H. Harris, deviated from the procedure of
marking a "/" in the columns to indicate Married within the Year, Attended School within the
Year, and persons over 20 years of age who cannot read and write.  Instead he entered numbers
in the columns, generally for the head of household to indicate the numbers in the dwelling
with these characteristics.  Thus, it is not possible to tell which individuals had those
characteristics.  In the computerized version, an X has been keyed in the columns where the
enumerator placed a number, and the numbers are noted as remarks (e.g., Read/Write contains a
2).

The enumerator, Stephen Stephenson, used initials instead of given names on pages 172a through
184b.  After that he wrote out the complete given names.  In addition, with the exception of
about twenty people, Stephenson's portion of the census that runs from pages 172a through 255b,
shows the birthplace as being North Carolina.  Although this is possible, it seems highly
unlikely.  On some pages, North Carolina was written in a completely different, non-cursive
handwriting, suggesting that someone else later filled in the blank fields of the birthplace
column.

This transcription was undertaken to fulfill my service project requirement to earn the rank of
Eagle Scout. I am indebted to many individuals who helped make it possible.  This census was
transcribed, for the most part, by volunteers who are not professional genealogists.  Over 125
volunteers spent more than 950 hours transcribing and keying the data, checking and verifying
the initial transcription and correcting errors. Together, we transcribed over 15,450 names.
The transcription was verified twice, once by volunteers, and once by two professional
genealogists.  Thus, within the limits of our ability to decipher the handwriting, I feel
confident that the information that has been transcribed is correct.


I wish to give special thanks to three individuals.  Mrs. Susan Zolkowski, Second Vice
President of the Wake County Genealogical Society which sponsors the USGenWeb website for Wake
County, NC, was my sponsor and provided enthusiastic support for the project. Randolyn Emerson,
a professional genealogist, introduced me to the USGenWeb project, provided overall mentoring
for the effort, and spent countless hours helping train volunteers how to read Census
handwriting and in verifying the accuracy of the data. Terry Moore, also a professional
genealogist, likewise gave freely of her time with the final verification.

I hope that many people will benefit from the use of these data in a computerized format.