Wednesday, April 4, 2012

1940 Census - What Data to be Captured

I have been doing some indexing of the 1940 Federal U. S. Census, trying to get an idea of what is being indexed. Interesting project.

It has been helpful to read and understand what information is on the Census Form, and then to identify what information that I want to capture. Each of us will have a different pieces of information that will be recorded in our database. I have done this with each census year.

Here is the list of columns on the 1940 Census Form:
  • Bold I am entering information into a Fact 
  • Bold and Red is what is being Indexed and Entering into a Fact
  • Blue being Indexed not being entered

1940
00 - Line
01 - Street *
02 - House Number *
03 - No of household in order of visitation
04 - Own / Rent
05 - Value of home / monthly rent
06 - Farm Y/N
07 - Name *
08 - Relationship *
09 - Sex *
10 - Color / Race
11 - Age at last birthday (1) *
12 - Marital status *
13 - Attended school or college at any time since March 1, 1940
14 - Highest grade of school (2) *
15 - Place of Birth *
16 - Citizenship
17 - Residence April 1, 1935 (3) *
18 - County
19 - State
20 - On the Farm (Y/N)
21 - At Work 3/24/1940 (Y/N)
22 - At Work 3/24/1940 for WPA / NYA CCC
23 - Seeking Work
24 - Have a job
25 - H, Homework, S School, U Unable to work, O other
26 - Hours worked week of 3/24-30/1940
27 - Duration of employ in weeks, up to 03/30/1940
28 - Occupation *
29 - Industry *
30 - Class of Worker
31 - Number of weeks worked in 1939
32 - Wages received
33 - +$50 from other sources othern then 32
34 - # of Farm Schedule

Supplementry Questions:

35 - Name *
36 - Father *
37 - Mother *
38 - Mother Tongue
39 - Veteran *
40 - If child, father vet? *
41 - War of Military Service (4) *
42 - SS # #
43 - Benefit from SS
44
45 - Usual Occupation
46 - Usual Industry
47 - Usual class of worker
48 - Has woman been married more than once
39 - Age at first Marriage
50 - Number of children ever born.


(1) 1 after 04/01/1939 (Will use Date Calculator and enter "Abt YYYY"
(2) 0 none, 1 - 8, H1 - H4, C1 - C4, C5 (Education Fact)
(3) City (R = 2,600 or less)
(4) W - World War, S - Spanish-American War, SW - Spanish American War & World War, R - Regular, Peace-Time, Ot - Other war or expedition

There are a number of websites that have the blank 1940 Census Forms.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

4 comments:

  1. Hey Russ - This is very helpful...I've been doing the same kind of thinking. I'm curious, though, what facts you will be using to record some of this information? For example, the information about the house (own/rent and value); where are you going to record that in FTM?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael,

    See what is in Red, above? That is what I am recording. I always have the image, if I want to capture it later. You certainly can capture that information. At this point, it's not that important for me, right now.

    Hope that helps,

    Russ

    ReplyDelete
  3. Russ - Sorry, I was a bit confused. I thought you were entering the bold (not Red) stuff into a fact as well. I guess that's not the case or I'm having trouble distinguishing the bold and not bold items.

    Most of the red items, I think I can figure out what facts you're going to record them against:
    Street/House Number = Residence
    Name = Name
    Sex = Sex
    Age at last birthday & Birth place = Birth
    1935 Residence = Residence
    Marital Status = Marriage

    But what about Relationship? Are you entering that as a discrete fact? Or is it just represented by the relationship in the tree?

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Michael,

    Sorry about the color / bold issue.

    I am entering the Address or Family Number, depending on what is on the census record.

    Name, sex, 1935 and 1940 Residence Fact, Marriage Status, and Occupation.

    I don't need to enter the relationship, as that is set within Family Tree Maker. I haven't had any issues with that.

    The Age at the last birthday and birth place.

    I use the Calculator for that. 1940 for the year, and age in 1940 and enter Abt YYYY, and the State, as what is reported. I have chosen to use the About Date format.

    For the occupation fact, I enter Occupation - Industry.

    Each of the above I enter 1940.

    For the 1935 census, I want to make sure that I can see on the Fact, what was on the Census Record.

    Same House - ED ##-## - Same House - Address (however the 1940 was stated, but I include the ED and the words Same House

    Same Place - just Same Place, in the description line and do include the County, state entry.

    If there is an "R", I enter "Rural".

    Does that Help?

    Russ

    ReplyDelete

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