1910 Demographics of Bear Creek and St. Albans Townships

How many people lived in St. Albans Township, Hancock County, Illinois in 1910?

The quick answer, according to Ancestry.com’s 1910 census database is: 1089.

It didn’t take too much to pull this number from the Ancestry.com’s 1910 census database (see warnings at the end).

Steps:

Find someone in the desired location in the desired census year (I did this with a man named Samuel Neill). View their “transcription” to see how the data (particularly the location) appears in Ancestry‘s database. This allows you to know exactly how Ancestry transcribed the location. This is key for some locations. Don’t guess at how the location is in the database for that specific census year–check it out. It may not appear in the dropdown list of locations.
Perform a search without names for that location–in this case that was done by performing an exact search for Hancock County, Illinois, with St Albans in the keyword (exact).

Using that same search box, you can enter in places of birth. I discovered that in 1910, St. Albans Township had 15 natives of Ireland.

A little more experimenting discovered that St. Albans Township had:

A similar search for Bear Creek Township, Hancock County, Illinois, in 1910 indicated 936 residents. This number included:

Keep in mind that these numbers are dependent on the search being performed carefully and correctly. It is also dependent on:

the informant giving the correct information
Ancestry.com transcribing the information correctly
the location being keyed to the right place correctly if the census enumerator used non-standard place names–especially for locations in Germany and other parts of Europe

But there may be some demographic information hidden in that Ancestry.com database.

How many of those 1089 people living in St. Albans Township are my relatives is a question for another day.

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