Visit HistoryForge.net and in the top right corner select "Buildings" or "People." Then select "Filters" beneath the page title. Add in information to narrow your search (eg. a last name to find a person, or street name to find a building). At this time we've only digitized records for inhabitants in the City of Ithaca between 1900-1930. Be aware that the census records in the first half of the century were entirely written by hand and some census spellings may differ from your records, also many street names and numbers have changed the last 80 years, so exact address matches might not always exist.

Mapping your results. When you click "Map It" your search results will appear on a modern Google Map. To see the same results on historical maps, pull down Top Map menu and choose a map layer. Many of these are still under construction or are restricted to certain areas. The 1910 Sanborn map is completely digitized. You can add a second layer (for example the City Engineering Maps) by adding a "Bottom Map" and use the opacity slider to explore several of the map layers at once. You can also get Google's satellite view from the tab in the upper left corner. 

We have an amazing group of transcribers who have entered almost 45,000 records --the complete censuses of Ithaca for 1900 and 1910, and partial censuses for 1920 (30%) and 1930 (55%). With more volunteers we can make even better progress and extend our coverage to 1890/92 and 1940. Please consider volunteering to help digitize more maps and records for HistoryForge.

Contact HistoryForge@thehistorycenter.net with any questions or feedback. 

Portrait of Martha Van Rensselaer. One of the first full-time faculty members of Cornell University, and co-founder of the School of Home Economics. Find her in the census from 1930 on HistoryForge.

HistoryForge Database Search Examples

Searching for People

HistoryForge has records for all the people in the US Census for 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 in the city of Ithaca, NY. This information has been transcribed by local volunteers from the original census records which allows you to search on all the information. 

The US Census for 1900-1930 contained the following general questions about individuals and their household: Street address, whether the home was owned or rented, the name of each individual in the household, their age, sex, race, marital status, place of birth, immigration year and status, and profession and industry

Possible Searches:

• Compare the African American community in 1900 with the same community in 1910
  
• Widows (female) in Ithaca
• Widows as Heads of Household who owned their own homes
• Can you find Cecilia Smith inventor of the Ithaca Kitty, or Levi Spaulding the first African-American police officer in the city (before joining the Ithaca Police Department he owned a barbershop where Viva Taqueria is today!)?

Searching the Built Environment:

Look for a specific address  within the Ithaca city limits as of 1910 - Downtown, Northside, Southside, Fall Creek, East Hill, and lower South Hill. Or if you know the type of business and the general area but not exact number, you can explore the Sanborn maps which include notations for different types of businesses in the city limits.

Possible Searches:

• Work places and industries. Some of the annotations include: Gro (Grocer), Sal (Saloon), D.G. (Dry Goods), Bakery, Barber, Billiards, Books, Meat, Fish, and Tailor.
• You can also search certain building materials, such as buildings constructed of brick, by adding a filter to your search.