Research Memo · March 2026

Beyond the Census

Ancestry.com hosts billions of person-level U.S. records that most economic historians have never touched. We reviewed the full catalog and found these worth knowing about.

We went through every U.S. collection in Ancestry’s catalog looking for large, person-level datasets from 1862 to 1950 with variables the decennial census doesn’t have. The census dropped its wealth questions in 1880 and never brought them back. It never recorded employer information. It provides snapshots only once a decade. And it captured almost nothing about the economic lives of formerly enslaved people.

Everything below is linkable to Census Tree by name, age, and location. But there’s an important practical distinction: some collections have their key variables in the searchable API index (easy to scrape at scale), while others index only names and put the interesting data on scanned page images (requires OCR).

What you can actually scrape

✓ API returns the good stuff Draft cards · City directories · Freedman’s Bank · Voter registrations · Naturalization records
⚠ Names only — wealth on images IRS Tax Lists · Non-population schedules · GA Property Tax Digests · TX Tax Rolls
IRS Tax Assessment List, New York, 1864
An IRS Tax Assessment List from New York, 1864. Columns record each taxpayer’s name, the article or occupation taxed, and the dollar amount assessed. These ledger pages contain the wealth data—but Ancestry’s index captures only the names.
01

Wealth & Tax Records

The census dropped wealth questions in 1880. These are the best sources for individual-level income and property data in the decades that followed.

IRS Tax Assessment List detail
Featured

U.S., IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862–1918

8,850,878 records · 38 states
IncomePropertyTax paid ($)Occupation taxed ⚠ wealth on images
The closest thing to individual tax returns for the Gilded Age. Created under the Civil War income tax ($600+ threshold), these ledger pages record what was being taxed—income, specific property, occupational licenses—and the dollar amounts assessed and paid. Concentrated in 1862–1866 but extends to 1918 for some western states. The API index returns only name, year, and state; the financial data lives on the scanned pages.
Georgia, Property Tax Digests, 1793–1892
4,996,001 · 137 counties
Property valuationSlave holdings⚠ wealth on images
5M person-level property tax records. Pre-war records include slave holdings. Study the destruction of slaveholder wealth and Black land acquisition during Reconstruction.
Texas, County Tax Rolls, 1846–1910
3,852,784
Property valuation⚠ wealth on images
Nearly 4M person-level tax records spanning Civil War through the 20th century.
U.S., Non-Population Census Schedules, 1850–1880
6,400,488 · 23 states
Farm valueLivestockCapital invested⚠ wealth on images
Agriculture schedules (farm value, machinery, livestock) and manufacturing schedules (capital invested, workers). Covers AL, GA, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA + 16 other states.
WWI Draft Registration Card
A WWI Draft Registration Card showing the indexed fields: name, race, birth date, birth place, residence, and the right-side panel showing what the Ancestry API returns. These cards also record occupation, employer name & address, and physical description—all searchable.
02

Draft Registrations

Near-universal male coverage with employer, race, and physical data the census never recorded. Combined, these cover essentially all adult men alive between 1917 and 1945.

WWI Draft Card search results
Featured

U.S., WWI Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918

29,370,617 records · ~98% of men 18–45
OccupationEmployer name & addressRaceCitizenshipHeight, build, eye/hair ✓ indexed via API
A near-universal labor force survey with anthropometric data. The employer name and address fields are unique—no census ever recorded this. Race, citizenship, physical description, marital status, and dependents are all in the searchable index.
U.S., WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940–1947
54,144,553
OccupationEmployerRaceHeight, weight✓ indexed
54M records. Employer name, race, height, weight, complexion, eye/hair color.
WWII Draft Cards, 1942 (“Old Man’s Registration”)
14,501,913 · men 45–64
OccupationEmployerRace✓ indexed
Purpose was to inventory industrial capacity and skills. Especially rich occupational detail.
Cards for AL, FL, GA, ME, MS, NM, NC, SC, TN are lost.
WWII Army Enlistment Records, 1938–1946
8,369,211
Education levelRaceHeight & weight✓ indexed
One of the few large-scale sources with education level before 1940.
Albany NY City Directory, 1900
An Albany, New York city directory from 1900. Each line lists a resident’s name, occupation, and address. The right panel shows the indexed API fields. Directories were published annually in most cities, enabling year-by-year tracking of occupation and residence.
03

City Directories

Year-by-year occupation and address for nearly every urban adult. The single largest person-level dataset on Ancestry.

City directory detail
Featured

U.S., City Directories, 1822–1995

1,385,585,456 records (1.39 billion)
OccupationEmployer ✓ indexed via API
Name, home address, occupation, employer, spouse, household status. Published annually in most cities. Build panels of occupational mobility, residential sorting, and neighborhood change at annual frequency. Used by some economists (Collins & Wanamaker) but the full national collection is largely untapped at scale.
Boston, List of Residents, 1909–1972
18,822,654
OccupationCitizenship✓ indexed
Annual listing of all Boston residents. 63 years of annual data for one major city.
04

Immigration & Naturalization

Employer, occupation, and financial data for the foreign-born population—including a brand-new near-census of all non-citizens.

U.S., WWII Alien Registration, 1940–1955
8,253,861
OccupationEmployerNationality ✓ indexedNew: July 2025
Under the Smith Act, every non-citizen had to register. A census of all foreign-born non-citizens with occupation, employer, nationality, and arrival date. Published July 2025; totally unexploited.
NY Arriving Passenger & Crew Lists, 1820–1957
65,000,000+
OccupationMoney carried ($)Literacy✓ indexed
Post-1893: occupation, literacy, and money carried ($)—a rare direct financial measure at arrival.
Naturalization Records (multiple states)
50,000,000+
OccupationArrival date✓ indexed
NY (9.2M), IL (7.3M), CA (5.2M), MA (4.6M), PA (3.2M). Post-1906 petitions include occupation, arrival date, port, and witnesses.
Border Crossings: Canada & Mexico
15,324,892 combined
OccupationNationality✓ indexed
Mexico (5.9M) covers early US-Mexico migration including 1930s repatriation. Canada (9.4M) captures French-Canadian migration to New England.
Freedman's Bank deposit register
A page from the Freedman’s Bank deposit register, Washington D.C., 1865–1871. Each entry records the depositor’s name, former master, plantation, complexion, height, children, birthplace, residence, occupation, and signature. One of the only sources with financial data for formerly enslaved people.
05

Reconstruction & Black Economic Life

The richest sources on the transition from slavery to free labor markets—including wages, employers, and family structure for formerly enslaved people.

Freedman's Bank detail
Featured

U.S., Freedman’s Bank Records, 1865–1874

685,322 records
OccupationEmployerComplexionFamily & former enslaverBank deposits ✓ indexed via API
Deposit applications for the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company. Records occupation, employer, complexion, former enslaver’s name, spouse, children, parents, siblings, plantation name, and military service. One of the only sources with financial data for formerly enslaved people.
U.S., Freedmen’s Bureau Records, 1865–1878
3,234,992
WagesLabor typeRaceFamily✓ indexedFree
Labor contracts with actual wages and terms, marriage certificates, ration distributions, school reports, hospital records. Free on Ancestry—no subscription.
Confederate Army Payrolls for Enslaved Labor, 1840–1883
189,403
Payment amountsLabor type✓ indexed
Names of enslaved people, labor type, and payment amounts to enslavers.
06

Criminal Justice

Person-level prison records spanning convict leasing through Jim Crow.

Pennsylvania, Prison & Workhouse Records, 1829–1971
793,349
RaceOccupationPhysical desc.✓ indexed
Largest prison dataset on Ancestry. 142 years from Eastern & Western State Penitentiaries.
Alabama, 1886–1952 (115K) · Texas, 1875–1954 (264K) · Iowa, 1867–1970 (93K)
Race✓ indexed
Alabama was a center of convict leasing. Iowa provides North-South comparison.
Savannah, Georgia, Jail Records, 1805–1873
42,950
RaceNew: Dec 2025
Antebellum through Reconstruction. Records free and enslaved individuals.
07

Everything Else

Intergenerational links, banking records, land patents, fraternal orgs, and more.

U.S., Social Security Applications, 1936–2007
137,748,393
Parents’ namesRace✓ indexed
138M records with parents’ names for intergenerational linking. Race and birthplace.
NY Emigrant Savings Bank, 1850–1883
284,268
Savings ($)OccupationFamily✓ indexed
Irish immigrants with actual dollar amounts of savings.
Providence, RI, Old Stone Bank Records, 1844–1924
469,684
Bank accounts✓ indexedNew: Mar 2025
Individual-level banking records spanning 80 years.
U.S., General Land Office Records, 1776–2015
11,262,139
Land acreage✓ indexed
11.3M federal land patents. Homestead Act, frontier settlement, land speculation.
Japanese Americans Relocated During WWII
109,377
OccupationEducation✓ indexed
WRA records with pre-internment occupation and education.
MA Mason Membership, 1733–1990 (336K) · Railroad Pensions, 1934–1987 (1.5M)
OccupationEmployer✓ indexed
Masonic membership with occupation. Railroad pensions covering 1.5M workers.