How the U.S. government measures race has changed substantially since censuses began in 1790. Today, Americans differ on whether the government should ask about race.

Racial categories, which have been on every U.S. census, have changed from decade to decade, reflecting the politics and science of the times.

MIDDLEBORO — Most people think of Middleboro as a quiet town. But the municipality was once one of the largest settlements in the early United States. According to data from the 1790 United States ...

__1790: __In keeping with a tradition at least as old as the Romans and constitutionally mandated by the Founding Fathers, the first U.S. Census begins. Federal representatives fanned out across the ...

If you take a beginning genealogy course you will often learn, as I did many years ago, that the 1790 census was destroyed by fire when the British invaded Washington D.C., during the War of 1812. But ...

As we genealogists await the release of the U.S. Census of 1940, just six months away, let’s take another of our occasional looks at a census of the past – this time the very first one, 1790. We’ve ...

Knock, knock. Who's there? The census taker. The census taker who? No, really, this is no joke. It's the census taker. "Snapshot of America" Super Bowl ads were followed by letters alerting that forms ...

The US Census bureau is gearing up for next year’s count. The government’s been counting Americans for more than two centuries. The very first US Census was in 1790. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke says ...

The Official Medallion of the British Anti-Slavery Society--1795 This is the second post in a six-part series dealing with the race questions on the census. Just as the concept of race differs from ...

In response to the May 10 column by Ted Diadiun, “Census questions not up to liberal judges:" The 1790 census taken after the founding of our country called for the name of the head of the family and ...

More than two centuries after Congress (meeting right here in Philly) first decreed it, the census takers will be out again this year. The results of the once-a-decade count — not to mention the ...