Here's an interesting household from the 1880 census:
This is no relation to me, but look at this...from the 1880 Census....in Flint, Michigan....notice the girl Jenny Abertheny who is listed as "no relation" to the head of the household. Her occupation? Prostitute.The census says that Jennie was single and George was married, but they may indeed have been
Jenny's husband's occupation? "Miserable loafer." [Link]
I wrote a year ago about a map showing the distribution of men and women in America in 1890. Compare that map (taken from the David Rumsey Collection) to Richard Florida's Singles Map of the United States, based on 2006 Census Bureau data. Overlaying one map with the other (as I've clumsily done below) shows that things haven't changed much in 116 years. Men still predominate in the West; women still outnumber men in the East. And I still can't get a date.
The ABC15 Investigators of Phoenix, Arizona, did a hard-hitting exposé on genealogy "rip-offs and scams," and offered this piece of advice:
Smith recommends starting with the U.S. Census to find your roots, which keeps records after 1906. [Link]I think they confused the United States with Canada's Northwest Provinces. A common mistake.
The authors of the new book Bad Baby Names relied mostly on U.S. census records.
- Long before Bart Simpson made prank calls to Moe's Tavern, children were burdened with names such as "Mike Rotch," "Hugh Jass," "Ivana Tinkle" and "Maya Buttreeks."
- Think the "Boy named Sue" had to be tough? How about Cinderella Liverotti, whom the authors note was "sadly, a man, and a coal miner at that."
- Babies named after food include "Lettuce Crum," "Hoagie Hoagland," "Onion Critzer," "Mustard M. Mustard" and "Tomato Billips."
- Among the simply comical Dickensian monikers are "Leech Goodpaster," "Smock Bufner," "Knob Simmons," "Hose Belt," "Glove Butts" and "Hornby Toot." [Link]
I somehow missed the 2006 horror flick Population 436 at my local theater.
I don't know why Hollywood hasn't produced more movies in which census takers fend off lobotomies. It sure would have made Driving Miss Daisy more exciting.Jeremy Sisto and Limp Bizkit lead singer Fred Durst star in this thrilling story about a U.S. census taker who is assigned to assess the population in a remote mountain community. The census taker becomes trapped in this prison-like town full of 'golden rules' (that no one ever breaks) that doesn't allow its population to drop below or exceed exactly 436 citizens, a number in accordance with 'God's Law.' He eventually learns that NO ONE is ever allowed to leave Rockwell Falls and that the town citizens will do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo. After fending off a lobotomy and pretending to go along with the program, the U.S. census taker eventually tries to escape. Will the population finally be altered, or will the story of Rockwell Falls live on?
The Economist has an interesting article on the politics of census taking.
Counting can be even more dangerous than being counted. In 1936 Stalin told his officials that the following year's census would find a total population of 170m—a figure that took no account of his slaughter of millions in famines and purges. But the enumerators found only 162m people, and also revealed other unwelcome facts, including that nearly half the population of this avowedly atheist country was religious. So Stalin denounced the count as a “wrecker's census” and had the census takers either imprisoned or shot. A new count in 1939 came up with a similar total, but this time officials wisely classified the results and gave Stalin his figure of 170m.Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, was "so fond of enumeration that he once wrote to a friend that he had 'ten and one-half grandchildren, and two and three-fourths great-grandchildren', and that 'these fractions will ere long become units.'"
The 1911 Census of Dublin, Ireland, went online today. It may be searched or browsed by place.
On Sunday, April 2nd, 1911, a 28-year-old maths professor called "Edward de Valera" filled out his census form at home at Morehampton Terrace in Dublin. Across town, Oliver St John Gogarty did the same. In the marital status column he wrote "single", then crossed it out and replaced it with "married", apparently remembering Martha, his wife of five years.
Some entries are missing, of course. They include those for the suffragettes Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Anna Haslam and Louie Bennett, all members of the Irish Women's Franchise League, who decided to boycott the census in protest at not having the vote.
When a policeman interrupted one of their meetings on the night before census day to remind them that it was illegal not to fill out the form, the women told him they had arranged for airplanes and submarines to remove them from the soil of Ireland for the night of April 2nd. [Link]
The European Union denies that a proposed census question has anything to do with a woman's sexual history.
One proposed question asks the "date(s) of the beginning of consensual union(s) of women having ever been in a consensual union: (ii) first consensual union and (ii) current consensual union".
A spokesman for Eurostat, which provides the EU with statistics at European level, said: "This definition has absolutely nothing to do with asking women about their sexual behaviour.
"Consensual union is in fact another term for unmarried partnership." [Link]
This won't come as news to anyone who follows Major League Baseball, but Hispanic surnames are becoming more prevalent.
Smith remains the most common surname in the United States, according to a new analysis released yesterday by the Census Bureau. But for the first time, two Hispanic surnames — Garcia and Rodriguez — are among the top 10 most common in the nation, and Martinez nearly edged out Wilson for 10th place.And yet, only one of Ben & Jerry's 44 ice cream flavors has a Hispanic last name.
The Census Bureau’s analysis found that some surnames were especially associated with race and ethnicity.
More than 96 percent of Yoders, Kruegers, Muellers, Kochs, Schwartzes, Schmitts and Novaks were white. Nearly 90 percent of the Washingtons were black, as were 75 percent of the Jeffersons, 66 percent of the Bookers, 54 percent of the Banks and 53 percent of the Mosleys. [Link]
The president of Peru ordered everyone in the country to stay home for 10 hours on Sunday so a census could be taken.
Half a million student volunteers were going from door to door to collect information about income, education level, jobs, religion and marital status.
Although the government did not establish sanctions for people disobeying the order to stay home, police were "inviting" people to go home if they were out on the street. [Link]
Those marks in the margins of your ancestor's diary may look like scribbles, but they might actually be asemic writing.
It looks like writing, but we can't quite read it.If doodles count as asemic writing, here's a fine example from census taker George W. Rand, who left this work of art on a page of the Waterford, Maine, census in 1860:
I call works like this "asemic writing".
Asemic writing seems to be a gigantic, unexplored territory.
Asemic writing has been made by poets, writers, painters, calligraphers, children, and scribblers, all around the world. Most people make asemic writing at some time, possibly when testing a new pen.
Mary Penner writes today of the Defective, Dependent and Delinquent census schedules of 1880.
The 3-D forms had seven different categories: insane, idiots, deaf-mutes, blind, homeless children, paupers and prisoners.
Even back in the 19th century, the sting of political correctness vexed the special agent in charge of the 3-D schedules. Defending the labels attached to the various 3-D classes, he noted in his final report that he would have gladly used less offensive and more judicious classifications, but he couldn't think of any better terms and no one had suggested any better ones. [Link]
An investigation has turned up no evidence that a Canadian census taker was instructed to make up names if she found no one at home.
The controversy began in February when enumerator Sharon Newton of Chilliwack, B.C., told a broadcast outlet she was asked to make up names in order to get the head count done.
"At the end, they just said, 'We really don't care. As long as you can find out if there (are) three people that live in that house, put down Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck on it," Newton said at the time. "We don't care about a name." [Link]
In 1940, the Three Stooges were recruited as census takers. Hilarity ensued.
Well, sort of. Ancestry.com has added U.S. Indian Census Schedules, 1885-1940.
These censuses cover only Native Americans who lived on reservations under federal supervision. The Constitution excludes these "Indians not taxed" from the federal decennial census, but a 2006 Prologue article discusses how this rule was bent in 1880 and 1890. And how poorly native names were recorded.
In many cases, only a single name, either the given or surname, is recorded. Frequently, enumerators recorded an English given name without any surname or used "Indian" as a surname or given name. In the 1880 census, for example, there are 924 enumerations in which the surname is "Indian" and 560 entries in which "Indian" is recorded as the given name with no surname. Occasionally, "papoose" or "squaw" is used for given names, or a number is used in place of the given name. One enumerator took the unusual step of making this note in the 1880 census: "Indians won't always give their names. When they do it is unsatisfactoryily [sic] given."
Alvin O. Hall—the Milton Bradley of Cincinnati, Ohio—was granted a patent on Jan. 25, 1881, for a game based on the 1880 census. It was to be played on two identical maps of the United States with blocks bearing the names of 48 census subdivisions ("thirty-eight States, nine territories, and one district"), and a like number of blocks bearing the number of inhabitants in each subdivision.
Either player, for instance No. 1, turns up a block [...] so that the name of the State can be seen, and then both guess at the population in 1880, and the one that has nearest approached the true figure takes the block and places it upon the corresponding State, and if he fails the block is returned to the rest; but if he guessed correctly the block remains on his map until all the blocks have been placed on the map, the player having the most blocks on his map being the winner.It is not known whether this game was actually inflicted upon the American public.
The Census Bureau will be holding a dress rehearsal for the 2010 enumeration.
This week census officials announced a practice count that will be taken in nine counties around Fayetteville, N.C., and in San Joaquin County, Calif. This year, for the first time, census workers will use satellite technology — hand-held global positioning devices that pinpoint each residence and transmit data instantly.Another takeaway from the article: "The questionnaires for the 2010 census are shorter than any since the first census was taken in 1790." Why bother asking questions when they can just tap your phone and read your emails?
"You really have to test, test, test because you only get one shot," said Preston Jay Waite, deputy director of the Census Bureau. [Link]
Among the additions made to the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection this weekend were Henry Gannett's statistical atlases for the 1890 and 1900 censuses. The maps show everything from the population densities of Presbyterians and Scandinavians to death rates due to consumption and typhoid fever. Presented on Plate No. 149 of the 1900 atlas is the "Number of Horses, Mules, and Asses per Square Mile."
Below is a detail from a map showing the "Predominating Sex" in 1890. Though most of the population schedules from that census have been lost, we can see that the East Coast was at that time overrun with females.
Margo Anderson and William Seltzer have found evidence that the U.S. Census Bureau handed over the names and addresses of Japanese-Americans living in and around Washington, D.C., to the Secret Service during World War II. The release occurred after Congress suspended the Bureau's legally mandated protection of confidentiality in 1942.
Anderson and Seltzer discovered in 2000 that the Census Bureau released block-by-block data during WW II that alerted officials to neighborhoods in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Arkansas where Japanese-Americans were living. "We had suggestive but not very conclusive evidence that they had also provided microdata for surveillance," Anderson says.
Anderson says that microdata would have been useful for what officials called the "mopping up" of potential Japanese-Americans who had eluded internment. [Link]
April 1, 1930, was an important day in the life of my grandfather Edgar Dunham's radio. That was the day that radios were first counted in the census. Here it is, enumerated with the rest of the family:
George was a young auto mechanic in the nearest village, and (the census shows) lived a few doors down from Edgar's first cousin once removed, Charles A. Dunham. Boarding with Charles on April 1, 1930, was Edgar's girlfriend, Mae Coolidge, who attended the same school where Edgar spent half the day splitting wood.
