The 1890 census returns of the U.S. were lost in a fire in Washington, DC in 1921. In only a few cases, the respective counties retained draft recordings (Short Form) for the returns that year. In Washington County, such a draft copy was spared and most books are on file at the Courthouse in Sandersville, GA. Copies are found in diverse places, such as the Washington Co, Historical Society. Unfortunately, not all the same information called for on the federal form was recorded on these short form collections. The Washington County collection does, however, give us names, ages, sex, race, and order of listing, by household, as taken by the census taker. We believe that this has not been available on-line and free of charge until now.

The Brantley Association initiated the capture and display of images on-line, and recruited members of the Association to index the files beginning in 2018. The files, now complete, are shown herein by book number with the accompanying indexes.

One of the primary goals of the Association has been to make hidden records, such as this, available without charge or subscription to those who are seeking out their family histories. This project is just one taken on for that purpose. We hope it will be an asset to researchers.

Acknowledgements of service include:

• Jimmy Lynn Brantley, for the splendid assistance in retrieving and imaging the census return books.

• Carol Storm as the Indexing Co-Project Manager, Consultant and Editor

Indexers:

• Carol Storm who indexed, alone, nearly one half of the project files.

• Jim Brown who too, alone, indexed a large portion of the project files.

• Carolyn Powers

• Ken Brantley

Dr. Steve Osborn: The project would have never appeared herein had it not been for Dr. Osborn’s technical guidance, project display, and development of an elaborate on-line indexing program. This indexing program which substantially reduced the time necessary to make entries is presently leading to a remarkable indexing program which should be made available for our future projects, as well as others indexing genealogical and historical collections.