What the enumerators were told
What’s an “inmate” on a United States census return?
Who was listed as the “head of household”?
What was a “housekeeper”?
And why in the world isn’t the however-many-great-grandaunt born in May listed on the 1910 census?
The answers to all of these questions have driven The Legal Genealogist‘s research … and can sometimes drive us all batty.
But they don’t need to slow you down one bit.
Because there’s an easy way to get the answers to all of those questions and many many more.
Read the directions.
In 2002, Jason Gauthier of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Economics and Statistics Administration produced one of the most singularly useful publications a genealogist can ever have in a toolkit. It’s available as a downloadable PDF file, directly from the U.S. Census Bureau website, and it’s called Measuring America: The Decennial Census from 1790 to 2000.1
What makes this 148-page document so valuable is that it sets out, in detail, exactly what the census takers were told to do for each and every U.S. census from the first census in 1790 all the way up to the census of 2000.
Sure, we all know that the enumerator might not have done what he was supposed to do — but knowing what it was that he was supposed to do is often a real help in understanding the records.
Reading the directions lets us know just what a term like “inmate” meant in the context of the census — because we can read the exact instructions that were given to the census takers. (And, by the way, those instructions changed between 1850 and 1870.)2
It tells us what a housekeeper was in the context of the census.3 And why “Indians not taxed” weren’t included in the enumerations.4 And even why that however-many-great-grandaunt didn’t make it onto the census in 1910. (She was born in May, remember… and the enumeration date was 1 April that year.)5
It’s a free download. You can read it with free PDF reading software.There are even free PDF-reader apps for tablets and phones.
So there’s no excuse.
Go do it.
Now.
Read the directions.
SOURCES
- Jason G. Gauthier, Measuring America: The Decennial Census from 1790 to 2000 (Washington, D.C. : U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau, 2002); PDF download, U.S. Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/ : accessed 22 Nov 2015). ↩
- See Judy G. Russell, “Of inmates and families,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 19 Aug 2014 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 22 Nov 2015). ↩
- See ibid., “The other housekeeper,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 16 Jan 2015. ↩
- See ibid., “Indians not taxed,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 13 Mar 2015. ↩
- See Gauthier, Measuring America: The Decennial Census from 1790 to 2000, PDF at 112. ↩
Another good source of information is the Minnesota Population Centers’ IPUMS projects at IPUMS.org. The instructions and forms for 1860 through 2010 are at https://usa.ipums.org/usa/voliii/tEnumForm.shtml — and if you’re curious about the office codes on the census, you can find some of the original codebooks at https://usa.ipums.org/usa/volii/codebooks.shtml.
IPUMS is terrific — but a little hard to read when the internet connection goes out! So a downloadable PDF is awfully nice…
Oh, I agree! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you much for pointing out this resource. I downloaded it immediately. I love researching family in the censuses but am always aware that there is an enumerator who “translates” and records the information the family provides.
Question: do you know of any document that maps the census districts? Often they are District 12, xx County. But where is that? Knowing where your ancestors actually lived, the farm or house location, is part of the fun IMHO of doing genealogical research. But District 12, xx County is a lot of land. I could always go to land records of course…
Maureen
What a great resource! Thank you!
Glad you found it useful!
I’m going to download that document ASAP, Judy. I’ve got copies of the forms, but I’ve always felt that wasn’t sufficient.
So I hope they’ll help answer some questions. One is why, in the 1930 and 1940 census, my mother is listed as “naturalized.” Sure, she was born in Saskatchewan, Canada. But her parents were US citizens at the time. Her father was a naturalized US citizen. He became a US citizen when his father was naturalized; I’ve got the documents to prove that. Because the 1940 provides the name of the respondent, I also know that my grandmother’s the one who told the enumerator that year that my mother was naturalized. Or maybe the enumerator misinterpreted something my grandmother said. Maybe the precise wording of how the enumerator was supposed to phrase the question will help me understand how that error got into the census.
Thanks, again, for a useful resource.
Hope the way the question was worded helps understand the answer!
Thanks so much for letting us know about this wonderful resource. It’s already downloaded.
Glad you found it useful!
Got all excited to see the Southwest Territory had been enumerated in 1790. I thought maybe I had overlooked something all these years. That would be a massive help to my research. Dang War of 1812.
Tell me about it…
Thanks for this.
Glad you found it useful!
I have that document – as well as all the individual enumerator’s instructions – printed and in a binder on my desk. They are some of the few PDFs that I actually print, instead of just storing digitally, because I refer to them all the time. Such a gold mine of information! 🙂
“Gold mine” — good description!!
Thank you for sharing this website. I printed it right away. It will be so helpful! I wanted to let you know that I’ve included this post and about three other recent posts of yours in my NoteWorthy Reads post: http://jahcmft.blogspot.com/2016/01/noteworthy-reads-25.html.