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  • Alabama Trails To The Past
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Questions Asked on the 1930 Census

US 1930 Census Download

 

  • PLACE OF ABODE
    •     
      • Column 1: Street, avenue, road, etc
      • Column 2: House number (in cities and towns)
      • Column 3: Number of dwelling house in order of visitation
      • Column 4: Number of family in order of visitation
  • NAME
    • of each person whose place of abode on April 1, 1930, was in this family
    • Enter surname first, then the given name and middle initial, if any
    • Include any person living on April 1, 1930
    • Omit children born since April 1, 1930
      • Column 5: NAME.
  • RELATION
    •   
      • Column 6: Relationship of this person to the head of the family
  • HOME DATA
    •   
      • Column 7: Home owned or rented
      • Column 8: Value of home, If owned or monthly rental, if rented
      • Column 9: Radio Set
      • Column 10: Does this family live on a farm?
  • PERSONAL DESCRIPTION
    •    
      • Column 11: Sex
      • Column 12: Color or race
      • Column 13: Age at last birthday
      • Column 14: Marital condition
      • Column 15: Age at first marriage
  • EDUCATION
    •    
      • Column 16: Attended school or college any time since Sept. 1, 1929
      • Column 17: Whether able to read and write
  • PLACE OF BIRTH
    • Place of birth of each person and parents of each person enumerated. If born in the United States, give the State or Territory. If of foreign birth, give the country of birth. See instructions for additional entries required for certain countries.
    • For a person who, on April 1, 1935, was living in the same house as at present, enter in Col. 17 "Same house," and for one living in a different house but in the same city or town, enter "Same place," leaving Cols 18, 19, and 20 blank, in both instances.
    • For a person who lived in a different place, enter city or town, county, or State as directed in instructions. (Enter actual place of residence, which may differ from mail address.
      • Column 18: PERSON
      • Column 19: FATHER
      • Column 20: MOTHER
  • MOTHER TONGUE (OR NATIVE LANGUAGE) OF FOREIGN BORN
    •   
      • Column 21: Language spoken in home before coming to the United States
  • CITIZENSHIP
    •   
      • Column 22: Year of immigration to the United States
      • Column 23: Naturalized or alien
      • Column 24: Whether able to speak English
  • OCCUPATION AND INDUSTRY
    •    
      • Column 25: OCCUPATION - Trade, profession, or particular kind of work, as spinner, salesman, riveter, etc
      • Column 26: INDUSTRY - Industry or business, as cottonmill, dry goods store, shipyard, public school etc
      • Column 27: Class of worker
  • EMPLOYMENT
    • Whether actually at work
      • Column 28: OCCUPATION - Yes or No
      • Column 29: Line number for unemployed
  • VETERANS
    •   Whether a veteran of the U.S. military or naval forces mobilized for any war or expedition
      • Column 30: Yes or No
      • Column 31: What war or expedition

Census Tip: Soundex: The 1930 census was only partially "soundexed". The soundexing system uses a numbering system for letters allowing a name to be indexed by the way it sounds, rather than the way it is spelled. The 1930 census was partially indexed by Soundex indexing before the government halted this process due to the need for employees to work in the war efforts. Unfortunately for those of us pursuing our family history, the indexing was never resumed, meaning later census years will not have soundex indexes. Only 12 states of the 1930 census records were soundexed. They include: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky (partial - Bell, Floyd, Harlan, Kenton, Muhlenberg, Perry and Pike Counties), Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia (partial - Fayette, Harrison, Kanawha, Logan, McDowell, Mercer and Raleigh.)

The original 1930 census documents were destroyed by the US government, leaving only the microfilmed copies for research. This may be disheartening for some family history researchers if the pages of the 1930 census on which their ancestor is found, was not microfilmed well.

The 1930 census takers recorded the actual date of enumeration on each page of this census, allowing the genealogy researcher to pinpoint ages more correctly.

 

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