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1930 U.S. Census Tips and Finding Aids
1930 U.S. Census Facts
T626 SeriesU.S., Guam, Hawaii, Panama Canal Zone, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Virgin Islands -
- 2,667 rolls census images (number 1 - 2668 but #1602 was skipped),
- 1,591 rolls soundex images
Texas - 127 rolls, numbers 2287-2413
87,756 enumerators
575 supervisors
$40,156,000 cost
26,000,000 homes with 123,000,000 population
11.6% (or 14,204,149) foreign born
Enumeration districts (EDs) consist of two hyphenated numbers:
the first two digits represent the county number;
the last two digits represent the ED number proper within the county.
What's New and Interesting on the 1930 U.S. Census?
PLACE OF ABODE
1. Street, avenue, road, etc.
2. House number.
3. Dwelling number.
4. Family number.
NAME
5. Name of each person living in the household on April 1, 1930.
RELATIONSHIP
6. Relationship to head of household. (Added "-H" to indicate the homemaker for the household.)
HOME DATA
7. House owned or rented?
8. House value or rent amount.
9. Is there a radio set in the house? (R = yes, No = no)
10. Did this family live on a farm?
PERSONAL DESCRIPTION
11. Sex.
12. Color or race - expanded to include White (W), Negro (Neg), Mexican (Mex), Indian (In), Chinese (Ch), Japanese (Jp), Filipino (Fil), Hindu (Hin), Korean (Kor), other races spelled out in full.
13. Age at last birthday.
14. Marital status.
15. Age at first marriage (if currently married).
EDUCATION
16. Attended school since Sept 1929?
17. Able to read and write.
PLACE OF BIRTH (Should not be abbreviated. Report place names as they exist in 1930 even if the name was different at the time of birth, e.g. Indian Territory now Oklahoma, etc.)
18. Person's place of birth.
19. Father's place of birth.
20. Mother's place of birth.
MOTHER TONGUE (of foreign born)
21. Language spoken in home before coming to the U.S.
-- CODES -- A, B, C - 3 columns of codes for birth place / language
CITIZENSHIP
22. Year of immigration to US.
23. Naturalization status.
24. Whether able to speak English.
OCCUPATION AND INDUSTRY
25. Occupation.
26. Industry.
D - Occupation code - first two digits categorize the type of work, last two dogits categorize the industry so can be used when the census for these columns is not readable (refer to 1930 Census Bureau publication Classified Index of Occupations, Fifteenth Census of the United States) and Alphabetical Index of Occupations, Fifteenth Census of the United States)
27. Class of worker - Employer or Wage earner or Own Account
EMPLOYMENT
28. Whether actually at work (yesterday or the last regular working day).
29. Line number for unemployed. (Note: The unemployment schedules have not survived.)
VETERANS
30. Whether a U.S. Veteran mobilized for any war or expedition.
31. What war or expedition - World War (WW), Spanish-American (sp), Civil War (Civ), Phillipine Insurrection (Phil), Boxer Rebellion (Box), Mexican Expedition (Mex).
FARM SCHEDULE
32. Farm schedule number. (Note: The farm schedules have not survived except for Alaska, Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.)
Indian Census Schedules were required by law to be prepared every year between 1885 and 1940. The 1930 rolls show name, sex, age, the degree of Indian blood, marital status, ward status, place of residence, and sometimes additional information. But remember that Native Americans living off the reservations may be included in the general population schedules. Some sources state these rolls are part on National Archives Series M595. But NARA says the Supplemental Indian schedules were destroyed, but Native Americans are found in the general population on the population schedules.
Web Sites With Finding Aids and Research Tips
http://1930census.archives.gov/ - National Archives finding aids - FAQs, Search Strategies, Census Question listhttp://www.census.gov/pubinfo/www/1930census_media.html - U.S. Census Bureau 1930 Census Info
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet?_lang=en - Census Bureau Maps
http://censustools.com/ - Excel spreadsheets for census research
http://stevemorse.org/census/ - BEST 1930 Census Finding Aid
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/itwit_census1930/ - Data from which the smorse site above was created - have to join Yahoo group
http://www.ipums.umn.edu/~pipums/voliii/inst1930.html/ - 1930 Census Enumerator Instructions
http://www.heritagequest.com/1930census/ - similar to NARA site
http://www.ancestry.com/save/charts/census.htm - Ancestry.com 1790 - 1930 Census Extraction Forms
Also, be sure to use your favorite search engine (such as http://www.google.com/) to locate new census tools as they become available. Ancestry and Heritage Quest and several others all have projects for indexing, online imaging, and finding aids being worked.
Getting Started
A. Make a list of the persons you wish to locate in the 1930 U.S. Federal Census and their probable County and state locations. This can be complicated by the fact that many people moved around looking for work in the 1930's due to the stock market crash.B. Soundex / Miracodes Available For Some States
The following states have complete Soundex indexes:
- Alabama,
- Arkansas,
- Florida,
- Georgia (coded in Miracode format rather than Soundex),
- Louisiana,
- Mississippi,
- North Carolina,
- South Carolina,
- Tennessee and
- Virginia.
The following states have partial Soundex indexes:
- Kentucky (Bell, Floyd, Harlan, Kenton, Muhlenberg, Perry and Pike counties) and
- West Virginia (Fayette, Harrison, Kanawha, Logan, McDowell, Mercer and Raleigh counties).
The procedure is the same as was used with the 1920 census soundex:
1. Generate the soundex code for the surname of interest. 2. Get the soundex microfilm rolls for the state and soundex code of interest. 3. Scan through the roll until you get to the soundex code of interest. Entries under each code are ordered by first name regardless of the actual surname. 4. When you find the entry for the person you are looking for, you will find the county and ED number in which the person is located.
C. Small Town and Rural Strategies
For non-soundexed states if your persons are in small towns you'll have to search the entire County. If you have found them in a previous census in this County try that same ED first. But until someone makes an index or adds a tool for that County the items available to narrow down the search are (the rest of this section was copied directly from the NARA web site on August 12, 2002):
Geographic Descriptions of EDs (T1224)
Geographic descriptions of enumeration districts are found in T1224, Descriptions of Enumeration Districts, 1830-1950 (156 rolls). The descriptions are arranged by state, county, and city or township. The 1930 descriptions can be found on rolls 61 through 90. These describe the boundaries of a particular enumeration district; they do not indicate all of the streets within that ED. They were transcribed and are included in the "Search Places" portion of this web site.
ED Maps (M1930) and Index to Selected City Streets and EDs (M1931)
The Bureau of the Census used contemporary maps upon which it overlayed, often just with grease pencil notations, the boundaries and numbers of enumeration districts. The quality and visual clarity of these maps varied considerably. The complete set of enumeration district maps are in M1930, Enumeration District Maps for the Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930 (36). This microfilm publication is available at all NARA regional records services facilities nationwide.
M1931, Index to Selected City Streets and Enumeration Districts, 1930 Census (7 rolls). This series cross references street addresses with enumeration districts for more than 50 cities.
Researchers can use the above resources, along with contemporary non-Census maps, current maps, and other local geographical information, to narrow their search to only a few EDs. Carefully study the ED descriptions for your area from the 1930 Census Microfilm Locator. Then compare these descriptions to known information about the location, such as street names and place names and likely places of residence for the family being searched. Searches conducted via the geographic approach often can refine the search area down to only a portion of a single roll of microfilm.
D. Large Town and City Strategies
For persons in large towns you can follow the procedure below. Also, recheck this web site periodically as it is being updated as new information is digitized and placed on computers.
1. Find an address from a 1930-ish City Directory for the households you wish to find in the 1930 U.S. Federal Census. Some examples from the 1930 Worley's City Directory for Dallas Texas:
Richards, Allie P (Evie) h 2530 Carpenter av
Parker, Alf (Bessie) h 1000 S Marlborough av
Carter, Alex (Mattie) h 3710 Ruskin
NARA and the LDS FHL has many city directories available on microfilm.
Clayton Library in Houston has a good collection as do many other libraries.
Use the online library catalogs to find the location of a city directory you need.
2. Browse to http://stevemorse.org/census/
(NOTE: The images in this page are from an older version of the web site. The pages on the site today may look a little different but are very similar.
Cities with populations 80,000 and up are listed and an address can be used to find the appropriate roll number and ED.
3. Select state, then select city (hopefully the one you want is in the drop-down list).
4. Then select a street from the drop down list. You can scroll down to the street you want or enter the first character of the street and go directly to that section of the list.
The EDs are determined by consulting tables that were generated from the T1224 microfilm. But this example only narrows it down to 2 EDs to be searched, 57-59 and 57-60.
You also get a map link for this street by entering a house number (2530 for this example) and clicking the "Map It" button. Maybe we can do better if we add a cross-street which we can find with the "Map It" button. By entering enough additional streets, the website can often narrow the possibilities down to a single ED. If there are still multiple EDs after entering the cross streets, then enter additional streets to complete the closed city block. Be Aware: Adding a cross-street doesn't always help.
5. If you enter a street number in the box then click on the "Map It" button it takes you to MapQuest where you can view a map to find cross-streets:
(NOTE: This diagram shows only the map itself - not the entire web page where the map is displayed.)
(NOTE: Mapquest displays CURRENT city streets that may not work for 1930 if street names have changed. In that case you'll need to locate a map from the 1930's period.)
Use buttons on the web page (not shown in this diagram) to Zoom in on the map if you can't see the street names of connecting streets:
6. Add cross street to narrow down the list of ED numbers. Be aware that there are spelling errors and missing street names on the ED descriptions (T1224) just like there are on census person names so if one street name doesn't help then try another name from the map. In the example below Crozier did not help but adding Leland did.
Now narrows down the EDs to be searched to 1 ED, 57-59. At least this eliminates one ED to be searched. Clicking on the "57-59" ED button will display the actual roll number of the T626 series - in this case roll 2317. There is an example of this further down in this document.
This entry shows one ED, 57-68, for Ruskin Street so mapping for cross streets in not necesssary:
7. View roll number. View the microfilm roll at a NARA, FHL, or genealogy library location.
See Census Microfilm Roll: 2318 (Dallas County)
Streets in Dallas, TX Enumeration District 57-68
Abbott Ave
Armstrong Ave
Blackburn
Bowser Ave
Craigmont
Douglas Ave
Fitzhugh Ave
Gilbert Ave
Glenwood Ave
Hawthorne Ave
Herschel Ave
Holland Ave
Irving Ave
Knight
Lemmon Ave
Newton
Northern
Oak Lawn Ave
Overbrook
Prescott Ave
Railroad Rwy
Reagan
Rocker
Ruskin
Stoneridge Dr
Throckmorton
Turtle Creek Blvd
Welborn
Wycliff Ave
Additional useful information available at this site:
http://stevemorse.org/census/reelframes.html
1930 Census Roll Numbers ----- Enter state and Enumeration District and get roll number
http://stevemorse.org/census/soundex.html
American Soundex --------- Will generate Soundex code for any name you enter. <