Created from County Records, Local Newspapers,
and Nationally Distributed Genealogical Publications Relating to Idaho, 1885-1894

Introduction

1888 Map of Idaho from Rand McNally & Co. , "Atlas of the World" (Click to enlarge.)

As many researchers who work with U. S. census records know, 1890 federal population schedules were destroyed in a Washington DC fire in the 1920s. Millions of individuals and their families disappeared into the twenty-year gap in federal records created by that cataclysm. "She was there in the 1880 census," we've heard quite a few researchers say of an ancestor, "but I can't find her in the 1900 census. I don't know where she went to." In fact, we've heard ourselves say the same any number of times.

Idaho, 1890 is an attempt by staff, interns, and volunteers of the Idaho State Historical Society Public Archives and Research Library to fill in that gap for Idaho researchers. Using federal, state, and local government records, local newspapers, and materials published in nationally distributed genealogical publications, we have attempted to identify as many persons residing in Idaho during the period, 1885-1894, as possible.

Idaho, 1890 is an ongoing project. At present, selected records from Ada, Alturas, Bear Lake, Boise, Cassia, Custer, Elmore, Idaho, Latah, Logan, Oneida, Owyhee, Shoshone and Washington counties have been indexed. Additional counties will be added in the near future.

If you find a name on any of the lists and would like a copy of the original record, please contact us. We do respond to U.S. mail, e-mail, and telephone requests. Please be aware that we have photocopy and research fees. Click here to review our procedures for submitting a research request.

Most entries in Idaho, 1890 are fairly straight-forward. Persons residing in Idaho between the years 1885 and 1894 are listed by last and first names. The records wherein each person appears are identified by county and record type. When the first names of men, women, or children are not provided, the unknown names are indicated by bracketed question marks, "[–?–]."

Persons with precisely the same first, middle, and last names may appear multiple times in this index. Readers of the index will find ten entries for a "Herbert E Adams," who resided in Cassia County, Idaho, and one entry for an "H E Adams." Chances are these entries all refer to one person. Nonetheless sound genealogical principle demands that in the absence of conclusive evidence the compilers leave it to researchers of the Adams family to delve into Cassia County, Idaho, records to determine if this is one and the same person.

In this and in all else we have done, we have striven to comply with the stringent, insightful indexing guidelines suggested by Patricia Law Hatcher and John V. Wylie in "Indexing Family Histories," National Genealogical Society Quarterly, June 1993 (Volume 81, Number 2, pages 85-99). Nonetheless, any errors in interpretation or execution of the excellent principles Hatcher and Wylie describe remain our own, as do any errors of fact.

We wish our readers the best of luck in their ongoing search for records of Idaho residents' lives and hope this index may be a particularly useful part of the process.

To view the 1890 Census index, you must have Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Acrobat Reader (free download) on your computer to open the file. If you do not have Acrobat and would like us to look up a name for you, or if you encounter any difficulties, click here to review our procedures for submitting a request for assistance. Be advised that the Idaho, 1890 index is intended for personal research purposes only and should not be copied or distributed to others in any format, including paper or electronic versions.

This is now a combined list of the following counties: Ada, Alturas, Bear Lake, Boise, Cassia, Custer, Elmore, Idaho, Latah, Logan, Oneida, Owyhee, Shoshone, and Washington. All counties except Latah are combined in the first two-thirds of the document and are alphabetized by last name . The Latah County group is alphabetized by last name and begins on page 1810 of the file. Note that this is a very large file--5.8 mb--and will take a long time to download on slow connections.)

• View the Idaho 1890 reconstructed census file

Download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader