> I have found the death of my great-great grandfather recorded in the > 1880 U.S. Mortality Census in East Feliciana Parish, LA. > > I would like to look at the death records upon which the census is > based, because the census is the only record I have of his death. > I've checked Ancestry.com and cyndislist.com but neither are very > clear as to how the census is conducted. Can I get access to these > records myself? > > <[email protected]> As I understand it, the census taker asked (among all the other questions to those he visited) if anyone in the household had died during the year preceding the census date. If so, then that information was recorded on the mortality schedule, just as other information was recorded on the population schedule, and other schedules. The information found on the mortality schedules is not based on some other death record, but on the responses given to the census taker as he visited each household. A few counties (parishes in LA) in the South may have kept other types of death records as early as 1880, but I think you will find these to be both rare and incomplete, if you find them at all. Other sources for death information that you might investigate include tombstone inscriptions, interment records (especially if buried in a town or city), church records, published obituaries, and family Bible records. "Ron Head" <[email protected]>