Essentially the only usable census index for the state of Georgia, this new reference tool constitutes the most reliable source of Georgia genealogical data published to date. Records of the first three censuses of the population of the United States for Georgia--taken in 1790, 1800, and 1810--were apparently destroyed in the British assault on Washington during the War of 1812, for nothing earlier than the 1820 census of Georgia survives. To be sure, name indexes to the 1820 and 1840 censuses of Georgia do exist, but these indexes do not identify the original census page on which the names appear and are clearly unequal to the exacting demands of professional research. Mrs. Register's publication, however, is keyed to the original census page and is, therefore, the only Georgia census index with complete finding apparatus.
The Index to the 1830 Census of Georgia contains the names of 52,000 Georgia heads of household, giving for each the county of residence and page number in the census where his name appears. Individuals are indexed alphabetically by surname. A particularly interesting feature of the book is the method of dealing with variant spellings: all names of like sound are grouped together, the variants being arranged in order of the most frequently used spelling, so the researcher is unlikely to miss a name through oversight or carelessness. The compiler of the book, moreover, was a nationally known figure in federal administration programs and a Certified Genealogist.
