There are a variety of records created during the 1890 time frame that can help fill in the gap of the missing 1890 census. Newspapers and city directories are two great sources for this time period–depending upon the area where one’s ancestors lived.
Keep in mind that there may be other records as well. It all depends on where your family lived, the amount of money they had, their religion, etc. In the case of one of my families, they were members of a denomination that practiced the rite of confirmation and, fortunately for me, some of their ten children were of an age (early teens or so) to have been confirmed during the 1890s.
It took some searching, but locating the confirmation records lead me to discover that the family spent much of the 1890 decade living fifteen miles from where I thought they had. There were numerous churches in the original town where they lived where the children could have been confirmed. It was clear the family lived in a different location during the 1890s. Confirmation records are sometimes overlooked by genealogists, but depending on the time period, they can be helpful.
Just like any record.
Don’t think about what records there aren’t. Think about what records there are.
What are some records you use to make up for the lack of an 1890 census?
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