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| Excerpt from 1950 US Census Enumerators' Manual |
Whether enumerators for the 1950 US Census actually followed the rules set forth in the instructions, I don't yet know. But if they did, we genealogists will be glad for their extra notations and detailed answers.
Some examples:
- If the enumerator can't get a specific, accurate age from a household respondent, he or she was instructed to "enter an estimate as the last resort, and footnote it as an estimate." Wonder whether my Great-grandma Tillie Jacobs Mahler told the truth about her age? She tended to fudge a year or two in either direction.
- If the enumerator thinks an answer is not truthful, he or she should footnote it and indicate what the truthful answer might be. Wouldn't that be interesting to see on a page with my ancestors? Looking at Great-grandma Tillie, would the enumerator believe she was, say, 98? I can't wait to find out.
- Asking about the respondent's occupation, enumerators are not to accept a general term like "agent" or "clerk" or "engineer" but must ask questions to obtain more specifics, such as "purchasing agent" or "aeronautical engineer." This would help me learn a bit more about ancestors whose work lives I know little about.
- Enumerators were to be specific about the county in which the respondent lived a year before. This will be really valuable to me, because instructions say not to accept merely "New York City" but ask about the specific borough of the city. If my ancestors moved from, say, Brooklyn to the Bronx in 1949-50, this question may reveal the move. I'm talking about you, Great-aunt Nellie Block!
This is a great series of posts about the 1850 census. It will be interesting to see if my great-great-grandmother, Mary Adsit, reported her age accurately at 86 or if she was so used to lying and reported it as 83.
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