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Preparing to Use the 1930 Census
By Jean Nudd, Archivist
As most genealogists know, the National
Archives’ 1930 census microfilm will become available to the public on April 1,
2001. Unfortunately for most of us, only ten states are fully indexed.
Genealogists researching ancestors in Southern states will be very happy with
the 1930 census because the ten states soundexed are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida,
Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and
Virginia, with partial indexes for Kentucky and West Virginia.1
For the rest of us, however, finding someone on the 1930 census is going to take
a lot more work.
There are four ways to find someone in
the 1930 census:
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If
you are researching a family or person that lived in one of the states listed
above, use the soundex. The soundex for 1930 works the same as for the 1900 and 1920 census.
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For
other states, if the family or person lived in a rural area, first read the
listing for the entire area in NARA publication T1224,
Descriptions of Census
Enumeration Districts, 1830-1950, to determine the enumeration
district (ED) for a town or township.2
(1930 is on rolls 61-90.)
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Then
use the catalog which shows the distribution of ED’s on the rolls of census
microfilm. A draft catalog is already in the Microfilm Reading Room at
NARA-Pittsfield and available to search now. This means you can use T1224 and
the catalog to learn now which roll of
film you will need. When the census becomes available in April, you can
immediately pull the roll of film, go to the ED and read the pages until you
locate the person or family you are researching.
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If the family lived in a city, and you know their address, and you know that
it was the same in 1930 as in 1920, use NARA publication T1224,
Descriptions of Census Enumeration Districts,
1830-1950, rolls 61-90 to learn the ED number. T1224 shows the ED
correspondence between 1920 and 1930. (1930 is the only year in which T1224
compares two census years’ ED numbers.)
Here is how to proceed.
A. Get
the ED number, precinct, ward, city or town, and county from the 1920 census for
the family you are researching.
B. Pull
the roll of microfilm of NARA publication T1224 for the state and county you are
researching in 1930.
C. In
T1224 for 1930, counties are listed in alphabetical order. Go to the correct
county to locate the city, town or township where the family lived. In 1930,
towns, townships and cities are listed in alphabetical order within each county,
except for major cities which are usually at the beginning of the county.
Within the town, township or city the ED’s are listed in numerical order for
1930. Larger cities are broken down by wards, and sometimes precincts, and ED’s
are listed within these subdivisions. To locate the 1920 ED of the known
address and thus determine the correct corresponding 1930 ED, a researcher may
need to read an entire town, township, ward or precinct. ED boundaries change
with each census, so ED 1522 in 1920 may be found in ED 5-197, 5-201, 5-202 and
5-204 in 1930.
D. Once
the ED is known, find it in the 1930 census catalog to determine which roll of
microfilm is needed, pull the roll of census microfilm, go to the correct ED on
the film, and then scan the left hand margin of the census pages in that ED
until you find the street name, and then the second column for the house number
to locate the family or person you are researching.
4. If
an address is not known, conduct research to learn the address prior to using
T1224, Descriptions
of Census Enumeration Districts, 1830-1950. There are a number of places
researchers can find old addresses. Possible sources are naturalization
records, vital records, church or school records, employment files, letters or
other correspondence, scrapbooks, obituaries or newspaper articles, or city
directories.3 Researchers will need
to use most of these sources somewhere other than at a National Archives
facility. Once the correct ED is known, follow the steps listed in #3 above.
A. Naturalization
records are part of the regionalized records within NARA, so researchers
will need to know where the naturalization was granted in order to find it. A
substantial number of naturalizations were processed by county courts and will
be available through the state or county offices.
B. City
directories are available in many town libraries, historical societies,
state libraries, etc. NARA purchased and distributed 865 rolls of city
directories to all of the regional archives for use with the 1930 census. These
films are available now in the reading room. A finding aid at the Pittsfield
facility lists, alphabetically by state, the city directories available. The
list of is also on the NARA website and in
Archival Anecdotes of December 2000 and March 2001.
City directories list inhabitants in
alphabetical order by surname and then by given name. They often include the
wife’s name in parenthesis as well as the person’s occupation, work address and
home address. Researchers should search for siblings, uncles, etc., as well as
ancestors.
T1224 gives the north, east, south, and
west boundary for ED’s within cities. To locate a street within these
boundaries, the researcher will need to know the city or have a map available to
find the street’s location within the city. Some city directories contain
street and avenue guides that list the streets in alphabetical order and give
the major intersecting streets or the intersecting streets at the beginning and
end of smaller streets. These guides also list the names of the families living
on that street numerically by house number. If a city directory does not have
street and avenue guides, it may have a map.
C. 1930
Census Enumeration District Maps. Already available in the Pittsfield
reading room are the microfilmed copies of the 1930 census enumeration district
maps. These maps were originally ward and precinct maps. The ward and precinct
numbers on these maps stand out and are easy to read. The ED numbers were
handwritten in at a later date in a yellow-orangey color that is hard to spot.
Researchers may also use contemporary maps along with the street and avenue
guides and ED descriptions to identify the correct ED for their search.
D. World
War I Draft Registration Cards. NARA-Pittsfield has World
War I draft registration cards for New England (M1509) and New York (M1609).
It may be useful to take the address from the card and use it to locate the 1920
census record and then proceed as in #3 above.
Review
So, let’s review. If the family lived in
an indexed state, use the soundex to locate the family. If the family lived in
a rural area, locate the correct enumeration district using T1224 and then read
the ED to locate the family. If a family lived in a city find a street address
using a city directory or other source. Then, utilize T1224 to locate the
correct enumeration district(s). Use ED maps if necessary. Check the catalog
to determine what microfilm roll contains your county and ED. Look at the
left-hand margin of the census sheets for the correct street name and then look
for the house numbers in the second column. Find your family!
Start now!
Researchers should begin their homework
now. Finding a street address may be a lengthy process and identifying the
enumeration district can take several hours. So, don’t wait until April 1, 2002
to begin working on the 1930 census, start today!
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1. National
Archives and Records Administration, “1930 Federal Population Census.”
Washington, DC: NARA, 2001. This article is routinely updated and is available
at www.nara.gov/genealogy/1930cen.html.
2. For
those researchers unfamiliar with the census, an enumeration district is a
division set by the Bureau of the Census. First, the state is divided into
supervisory districts which can be regional for rural areas or, in places such
as New York City, a county may have several supervisory districts. Second, each
supervisory district is divided into enumeration districts or ED's. The
boundaries of each ED are described in the National Archives micropublication
T1224, Descriptions of Census Enumeration
Districts. An ED may follow ward and precinct lines but that is not an
assumption a researcher should automatically make.
3. City
directories are privately compiled books containing one or more alphabetical
lists of the inhabitants of a locality, with their addresses and occupations.
Most directories included every male of employable age as well as younger
employed males. There are also some male students, working women, widows, and
girls of marriage age. Several members of a family may have met the criteria
for inclusion. One caution—because of the time lag between the gathering of
information and the actual printing of the city directories in the 1920s and
'30s, the information could be a year or two out-of-date.
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