Being a log of the genealogical, research, book-collecting, book-making, and book-fixing adventures of Kylie

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Enumeration Districts and How to Use Them

Scenario: You have located a family in the 1930 census but can't find them in the 1940 census.

Case Study: Lawrence McGuire was living at home with his father Charles McGuire and mother Margaret in Brooklyn, New York in 1930.  But where was the family in 1940? A simple ancestry.com search isn't bringing them up.

Let's take a look at the 1930 census and see what it can tell us.


There is the family in the 1930 census.  I know, it's kind of hard to see.  Here is a closer view:


McGire, Charles P.          Head
     ---   , Margaret M.      Wife
     ---   , Catherine B.      daughter
     ---   , Anna I.              daughter
     ---   , Thomas F.         son
     ---   , Margaret M.     daughter
     ---   , John J.              son
     ---   , Lawrence C.    son
     ---   , Helen R.          daughter

(last name is misspelled, but that's them)

I'm not going to go over all of the information the census records tell us - I did a little of that in A Study in Census. I'm just going to point out the information that will help us find the family in the 1940 census.

First - the assumptions.  For the purposes of our study, I am assuming that the family lives in the same house in 1940 as they did in 1930.

The first 4 columns of the 1930 census list this information:

In column 1, next to the McGuires we see "Brooklyn Avenue."  Next to Charles McGuire, in column 2, it says "1661."  So the McGuire's live in 1661 Brooklyn Avenue.  Columns 3-4 don't really give us any useful information - they just number the houses and families that the census taker has been to that day.

Like I said above, we are going to assume that the McGuires lived at 1661 Brooklyn Avenue in 1940.  But how do we find 1661 Brooklyn Avenue in the 1940 census? Rough estimate, there are hundreds of census pages covering Brooklyn.

We are going to find it according to enumeration district. As defined by the National Archives,

An enumeration district, as used by the Bureau of the Census, was an area that could be covered by a single enumerator (census taker) in one census period. Enumeration districts varied in size from several city blocks in densely populated urban areas to an entire county in sparsely populated rural areas. 
Enumeration district maps show the boundaries and the numbers of the census enumeration districts, which were established to help administer and control data collection. Wards, precincts, incorporated areas, urban unincorporated areas, townships, census supervisors` districts, and congressional districts may also appear on some maps. The content of enumeration district maps vary greatly. The base maps were obtained locally and include postal route maps, General Land Office maps, soil survey maps, and maps produced by city, county, and state government offices as well as commercial printers. Census officials then drew the enumeration district boundaries and numbers on these base maps.

The enumeration district can usually be found in the upper right hand corner of the census page.


As you can see above, 1661 Brooklyn Avenue was in Enumeration District (E.D) 24-823 (the 8 looks like it could be a 5, but by comparing to other numbers on the page, I determine that it an 8).

So now we just need to go find E.D. 24-823 in 1940, right? Wrong.  That would be way too easy.  E.D.s change year by year.  Luck for us, there is an awesome guy named Steve Morse, PhD, who gave us a handy dandy Unified Census ED Finder.  

And as I'm writing this, I see that we could have just entered the address and found the enumeration district that way..... Shhhhhh. That'll be our little secret.


Under the heading "If you know the 1930 ED for this location enter it here" we will enter 24-823.

We get two possible EDs as an output.  Clicking on the ED will take you to a page where you can select how you want to view the pages - NARA, familysearch, ancestry... Unfortunately now it's a matter of going through the census page-by-page until you find the person you are looking for.  At least now it's 30 pages rather than hundreds of pages.  As I'm going through, I am looking both for the street address (1661 Brooklyn Avenue) and the family name (McGuire).

Uh oh! I found where 1661 Brooklyn Avenue should be... but it's not there.

It skips from 1660 Brooklyn Avenue to 1664 Brooklyn Avenue.  

If this happens to you - don't give up hope! It probably means that the family wasn't home when the census taker came 'round.  Usually there is a section after everything else where the census taker goes back and catches the houses he missed the first time.

So we keep going.... and on page 3A of ED 24-2264B, there they are.




Here's why we couldn't find them - last name is spelled Maguire, not McGuire (or even McGire as the 1930 misspelling was), Charles is shorted to Chas, and Lawrence is spelled Laurence.  Also, they are listed as living ay 1663, not 1661.


So there you have it! A brief introduction into enumeration districts and how to use them.


Edit: While writing this post, I discovered that Steve Morse has a functionality where you can simply put in a known address and it will direct you to the census pages... but that's not as fun. ;)


No comments:

Post a Comment