Clark Solomon of Tuscaloosa, AL, has generously posted the 1830 U.S. census of Fayette County on his personal website.  The following information is based on an independent examination of these images.  Remember, censuses prior to 1850 identified only the heads of households.  Everyone else was counted and grouped according to his or her sex and age (under 5, 5 to 10, 10 to 15, 15 to 20, 20 to 30, etc.).  Slaves were recorded in similar fashion by name of owner.  The individual listed as the "head" was usually — but not always — the senior member of the household.

Census records, in general, are plagued by poor spelling and even worse penmanship.  The 1830 enumeration of Fayette County is no exception.  Then again, legibility is often in the eye of the beholder.  For example, what may look like Maclsworlh to a transcriber may clearly be seen as Wadsworth by a descendant.  But how many Wadsworth researchers will overlook this mangled interpretation of the surname?

The goal of this page, besides offering a map to the online census images, is to repair the most egregious mistakes of the transcriber and perhaps even the enumerator.  Correcting your ancestor's name here — even if your interpretation is not universally accepted — should make it easier for other researchers to find him or her on the 1830 Fayette County census.

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