The forward below, written by Edwin A. Norman, was copied directly from the "1860 Census for Washington County, North Carolina", April 1992.
"Unlike Washington County's prior and subsequent census, 1860 was not compiled using district (later township) designations. Except for the "Town of Plymouth," the enumerator left the space blank provided on the officaial forms for such identification. Mackeys Ferry was given as "Post Office" for all the county, except for Plymouth.
The North Carolina Division of Archives and History advises that its (the "STATE") copy suffers from the same omissions as the U. S. copy.
Some users of the microfilm copy of 1860 have observed that individual families are not always listed in the order in which they were geographically located to each other. In other words, "Great Uncle Joe's place doesn't show anywhere near Great-Granddaddy's where it ought to be." That excellent aid to genealogists, North Carolina Research (N. C. Genealogical Society, Raleigh 1980.) addresses this frustration in explaining that "Enumerators...were not required to prepare their lists in exact order of visitation."
In transcribing 1860, we ommitted four columns of the original: one which gave a "Dwelling House" number (in this census identical to the "family" number), and the three columns dealing with school attendance, literacy, and insanity and other impairments.
The enumerator's spelling was reproduced throughout. Several examples of this will become readily apparent, as in "Gethrew, Keitch, C. Barrus." Courthouse and other sources indicate Jethro, Keech, and Cabarrus.
We have also adhered to the sex as recorded by Mr. Starr. Several persons appear to be recorded incorrectly. Note his consistent recording of "Louis" as female. As no "Louise" appears in this census, we suspect our enumerator had a habit of droppinng his terminal "e's." In the case of "William Alice," perhaps the descendants will tell us".
25 March 1992
The 1860 Washington County census was transcribed by Edwin A. Norman,
assisted by Sybble M. Smithwick,
typed by Shirleyan Beacham-Phelps,
and formatted for the internet by Gordon L. Basnight.
A hard copy of this census can be ordered from: