1880 Sac County Census
The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, commonly known as "Mormons", have placed their transciption of the 1880 United States Cenus on-line at www.familysearch.org
On the front page, on the left, click "US 1880, British and Canadian 1881 Censuses are now available online."
TIPS ON SEARCHING
Drop-downs
Click the drop-down beside "Census" and choose "1880 US Census."
Type in at least the first or last name for which you are looking.
Click the drop-down on "Census State" and choose "Iowa"
Click the drop -down on "County" and choose "Sac"
You may also click the drop-down under "Town" and choose a township or town (or leave this on "All" to search all of Sac County if you
are unsure of the town or township.
Search by place of birth
If you want to search for people born in a certain foreign country or state, under "Birthplace Country", click the drop-down and choose a country. Or click on United States, and once the states load, click on the state of birth. For example, I could search for all people named "Johnson", born in Sweden, this way. Or I could search for all the women named "Anna" born in Germany, or all men named John born in Indiana.
Search by first name
Often a surname is badly misspelled. Type in only the FIRST name, not the last. For example: if I were looking for George Buehler, I could type in just "George", and search on all of Sac County. All "George" first names in Sac County would appear and I could then find George "Buhler", which is misspelled. However, some forenames are listed just as the initial, for example, G. Buehler instead of George Buehler.
Search by year or range of years
You may also select a birth year or birth "range" of years to narrow down your search. For example, all men named Oliver born between 1828 and 1832 (type in 1830 and choose plus or minus 2 years), or all people named Smith born between 1845 and 1855 (type in 1850 and choose plus or minus 5 years).
Viewing household to household
Often it is interesting to see who was living near your family. Or if you are unable to find your people, you may go household to household through a township or town. Below are the names which are listed first in Odebolt and the townships that surround it. See the example below to learn how to search household to household.
1880 Census "beginning names"
Town of Odebolt - Phillip Sease
Wheeler Township - James Rogers
Levey Township - Henry Buist
Richland Township - Daniel Lesher
Clinton Township - John Oleson
Cook Township - Josephus Kimball
Example: Choose Iowa, Sac County on the appropriate drop-down list.
Type "Phillip Sease" in "First Name" and "Last Name".
Click Search and a list of names comes up.
Click on one of them. A record comes up for that name. This is the beginning of the Odebolt Census
Then, on the upper right, click "Household", and the entire household comes up.
You can continue viewing households by clicking "Next household" (or "Previous household" if you wish
to go back).
(Images of the Sac County Census are also on-line at Sac County Genweb, if you wish to view actual scanned copies once you have located your people. They are large files and take quite some time to download. They are located at www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ia/sac/census/1880/1880.htm )