Greetings! As you may have guessed, I'm addicted to genealogy. I have tracked ancestors through the census for various years and have always wondered what the value of their personal property, as stated on the census, would be worth in today's dollars? Were my ancestors wealthy? Well, last week I found a website that gives conversions between the value of a dollar from 1790-2005.
Here is a link to the website MeasuringWorth.com. For example, in the blank for Initial Year I typed 1860 because my gg-grandfather Samuel Wiley indicated the value of his personal property on the 1860 census was $400. On the next line I typed 400.00. In the blank for the Desired Year I entered 2005, because that is the most recent year the figure can be calculated for. Then I clicked on Calculate. The conversion is displayed in several different ways. Using the Consumer Price Index, $400 in 1860 would be worth $9,632.31 in 2005. However, using the Unskilled Wage the same $400 converts to $62,800.
Below the various figures you can click Measures of Worth for an explanation of each of the figures. I thought you might be able to find an interesting use for it even if you're not interested in genealogy.
Stay tuned. Who knows what I'll come up with next week?
