Mortality schedules recorded the names of deceased individuals and included key details such as age, sex, race, marital status, place of birth, month of death, and the cause of death. Some schedules even listed the occupation of the deceased and the number of days they were ill before passing. These records can be especially valuable when standard census records don’t provide information on a deceased family member who was still alive during the previous census. Moreover, since these schedules often included information about people who didn’t leave behind extensive records, they can be a crucial resource for tracing elusive ancestors. It’s worth noting that some states conducted their own mortality schedules outside the federal census, offering even more opportunities for research in certain areas.
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