Some really good news spotted by Elsie on the Crawford-L list regarding this burned census. Now this one sounds promising! Article from Ancestry.com..... ANCESTRY.COM TO LAUNCH ONLINE SUBSTITUTE FOR 1890 CENSUS RECORDS DESTROYED BY FIRE OREM, UTAH - March 6, 2000 - Ancestry.com is undertaking a historically- significant project to reconstruct the immense amount of information lost when a 1921 fire in the basement of the Commerce Building in Washington, D.C. destroyed nearly all of the 1890 census. Part of the MyFamily.com, Inc. network of sites, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com) is using numerous sources to create an online substitute census with information to which hundreds of millions of Americans can trace their roots. More than 20 million records have been identified for inclusion in the census substitute and additions will be made regularly as records become available for posting. "Few records shed as much light on individuals, families and communities as census records. The 1921 fire destroyed insight into an entire generation's occupations, family origins, birth information and much more," said Andre Brummer, general manager of Ancestry.com. "The project goes far beyond trying to reconstruct a historically-significant set of documents. We are determined to provide millions of people a powerful resource for discovering information that has long been out of reach." Ancestry.com is working with the National Archives and the highly regarded Allen County Public Library to acquire portions of the vast amounts of information necessary to offer the first substitute for the 1890 census. The substitute census will consist of information from fragments of the original 1890 census that remained after the fire, special veterans schedules, several Native American tribe censuses for years surrounding 1890, state censuses (1885 or 1895), city and county directories, alumni directories, and voter registration documents. "When fire destroyed the original census it was a huge loss not only for family historians, but for sociologists, historians, economists and many others," said Loretto Szucs, vice president of Publishing for Ancestry.com and co-editor of best-selling reference book 'The Source.' "By merging 1890 information from several sources, Ancestry.com intends to make the census substitute an unparalleled resource for understanding a culturally and politically diverse period in United States history." A large portion of the census substitute consists of city directories, which list the head of household and other working adults at a particular residence. The reconstruction will reference city directories from multiple years, making it possible to determine if a person or family moved to a different location during the years referenced.