Mortality Schedules
Mortality schedules are available for the census years of 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880. They record deaths in the year preceding the taking of the census. For example, the 1860 mortality schedules include persons who died between June 1, 1859 and May 31, 1860. For each person, the following information is listed: name, age, sex, race, marital status if married or widowed, state or country of birth, month of death, occupation, and cause of death. Not all questions were consistently answered in all states.
These schedules may be the only record of death for some individuals, as many states did not require recording of deaths until the late nineteenth century. In addition, gravestones or cemetery records may be nonexistent. For example, a comparison of the 1860 Geauga County mortality schedule with Violet Warren and Jeannette Grosvenor, A Monumental Work: Inscriptions and Interments in Geauga County, Ohio, Through 1983 (Evansville, IN: Whipporwill Publications, 1985), found 52 persons for whom there is no gravestone or other record of burial in that county. There were also 58 children born after the 1850 census whose only "census record" is the 1860 mortality schedule. It may also be the only record of existence for children who have no gravestone.
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