Krakow Censuses 1850, 1870 online (instructions)

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logan
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Krakow Censuses 1850, 1870 online (instructions)

Post by logan »

The Krakow Censuses of 1850 and 1870 are now viewable online for free, with (handwritten) name indices, thanks to Poland's National Archives in Krakow and National Digital Archives.

The indices are roughly alphabetized by surname of the head of household, divided into two groups of images for each census year, covering surnames A-L and M-Z.

1850 A-L: http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/29/84/0/2/28 ... 0#tabSkany
1850 M-Z: http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/29/84/0/2/29 ... 0#tabSkany

1870 A-L: http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/29/86/0/2/16 ... 0#tabSkany
1870 M-Z: http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/29/86/0/2/17 ... 0#tabSkany

The purpose of the indices is to tell you, for each head of household, the district and house number in Krakow where the household appears in the census. You will look up each head of household in the indices, record the districts and house numbers, then find and view the corresponding census images.

To begin, click one of the index links above. You will see many small thumbnail images. Before clicking on any, figure out whether your surname should be closer to the beginning or end of the group. For example, if you are searching for the surname DEICHES, it will be closer to A than to L. With an approximate location in mind, click a thumbnail image where you guess your surname might be. When you click the thumbnail, a larger (but still not full size) image should pop up, and it might be big enough for you to read the surnames and determine if your name is included. If it is big enough and your surname is not included, you can move to the next or previous image by clicking on this popup on the right or left side. Or, if you are far off alphabetically, you can close the popup by clicking on the "x" in the top right and try another one.

If the enlarged image is not big enough to read the surnames, click the icon in the bottom right of the popup that looks like a white rectangle on a black circular background (next to the white z on a black background). After a few seconds, a much larger image will pop up on your screen, but only a small part of it might be visible at any time. By clicking and dragging the image, you can move it around to view other parts. If you do not see your surname, you can click the Nastepny/Next or Poprzedni/Previous links at the top to view adjacent images. Or, if you are far off alphabetically, you can close the window and try another thumbnail.

Once you find a person of interest in the index, record the district and house number. These are written to the right of the person's name, in the columns "Gmina" and "Numer domu" (1850), or "Czesc miasta" and "numer domu" (1870). The district will typically be a Roman numeral in 1870.

I suggest you record the districts and house numbers for all people of interest before looking up any in the census images, rather than doing one at a time, especially if you are interested in several people with the same surname.

Once you have a district and house number of interest, you will need to find the group of census images that contains it. The census image groups are listed at:

1850: http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/29/84/0/str/ ... bJednostki

1870: http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/29/86/0/str/ ... bJednostki

The title of each group of census images includes "Dz.," then a Roman numeral (or, sometimes, place name, in 1850), then "nr," then a range of numbers. What follows "Dz." is the district and the range of numbers are the house numbers within that district. From this information, you can determine which group of census images contains the district and house number you are interested in. For example, if you are looking for district VIII, house 190 in the 1870 census, the corresponding group of census images has the title, "Spis ludności 1870, Dz. VIII, nr 142-225, T. 13."

Note that for the 1870 census, in the list of groups of census images, the last column on the right, Liczba skanow/Number of scans, sometimes reads 0. If your group of census images has 0 in that column, then there are no scans available, currently, and there is nothing more to do.

Once you have identified a group of census images, click the title in the list, then, on the screen that comes up, click Skany/Scans to the right of the red tab. You should see 15 thumbnail images. The number of thumbnails displayed at a time can be changed -- I recommend changing the "15" in the dropdown menu above the thumbnails to "100."

Now you want to find the image for your house number. Actually, there might be several images for a single house number, so you want to find the image for your house number and name. Just as you estimated where in A-L or M-Z your surname should be, you can guess which thumbnail to try first by how close your house number is to the beginning or end of the range of numbers in this group. At the bottom of the page, you can jump to another page of thumbnails for the group. Note that, in a few cases checked, the thumbnails are actually ordered in reverse, with the biggest house number at the beginning, but this seems to be atypical.

When you click on a thumbnail, the larger image that pops up might be large enough for you to read the house number. For the 1850 census, the house number is handwritten near the top right, inside the bold black border around the table of census data. For the 1870 census, finding the house number can be a little more difficult. This is because the 1870 census images are shown two-at-a-time, and, therefore, smaller, and they are turned 90 degrees. Generally, the house number will be on the page on the right side, near the top left part of that right page (i.e., near the top middle of the image showing two pages).

Enlarging and moving between images is done in the same was as for the name indices, above. When you find a house number that matches, be sure to check a few images on either side until you find your household.

Once you find your household, view the full-size image (by clicking the rectangle icon near the bottom right of the image that pops up when you click the thumbnail). Scroll down to the bottom of that full-size image. At the bottom, in the middle, is a link called Pobierz or Download, which you can use to download the full-size image to your computer.

Interpreting the data in the census images is beyond the scope of these instructions, but feel free to post a reply here if you want to share information that could help other researchers. Also, please reply with any tips or other helpful observations about navigating the census.

Logan
madeleine
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Joined: Thu May 31, 2012 9:47 pm

Re: Krakow Censuses 1850, 1870 online (instructions)

Post by madeleine »

For the 1850 Krakow census, as I did for the 1880 and 1890 census, I decided to help a bit by going through the indices that Logan provided, to indicate where to find alphabetically the family names you might be searching for.

1850 A-L: http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/29/84/0/2/28 ... 0#tabSkany
1850 M-Z: http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/29/84/0/2/29 ... 0#tabSkany

In the first link, there are 458 images, with the beginning and ending images basically the covers.
So the numbers below indicate the first image among the 458, where you should look for your name of interest:

A 4
B 23
C 88
D 122
E 159
F 169
G 202
H 257
(I)J 283
K 310-401; 415-426
L 402-415; 426-455

In the second link, there are 428 images
M 3
N 64
O 90
P 103
Q --
R 157
S 196
T 302
U 327
V --
W 332
X --
Y --
Z 392

With these image numbers as a starting point, you can now proceed as Logan indicated, to find the appropriate pages.

Madeleine
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