Ode to My Missing Information

With humble and abject apologies to Joyce Kilmer and the poem "Trees":

1890

I know that I shall never see
The census from 1890

The census was destroyed one day
By fire and water, so they say

Missing relatives, marriage, death
All clues track’d within its breadth

I think it’s also most likely,
Up in smoke my link to royalty

So my walls of mortar and brick
Do remain; tall and strong and thick

Census’s are searched by fools like me,
But only God knows what’s in 1890.