The 1774 Census of Rhode Island Project aims to create a "census database", that is, a version of the 1774 census that links people named in the census to profiles on WikiTree.
Today the project passed the last milestone set on January 1 -- hooking up 4% of the 9900 heads-of-household in the census! That's 1 out of every 25 households! The aspiration is 100% coverage, and the next milestone will be 7%.
This project could eventually expand in many directions:
- Creating an "expanded census". The project would enable the creation of a census substitute that gives names both of heads-of-household and of people who appear only as check-marks in the census
- Pushing backward to create a census substitute for the previous generation.
- Double-checking secondary sources and resolving outstanding questions about identities and dates.
- Creating a repository of information on minorities in Rhode Island at the onset of the Revolution, specifically including African Americans and Native Americans, who were separately categorized and counted in the census, covering individuals both free and enslaved.
- Verifying "completeness" of a small but extremely well-documented piece of WikiTree.
Perhaps you have other ideas! Please jump on in if you do!
Minimal participation is simple. Go look at your family trees, and if you see a line that includes a person who probably would have been head-of-househod in Rhode Island in 1774, include the following on a line above his/her biography:
[[Category: 1774 Census of Rhode Island]]
If you want to go further, there is more information on the project page:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:1774_Rhode_Island_Census_Project
Thanks to everyone who has already participated: R. Greenup, Sue Hall, Mindy Silva, and Ellen Smith. If I left you out, maybe I forgot, but maybe instead I didn't notice the new profiles you added and I should have! Let me know in the comments and I'll give you a shout out!