Tuesday's Tip - Inputting Data on the 1930 U.S. Federal Census

1930 U.S. Federal Census

The form was actually done over a week ago, sadly I didn't just want to throw a form up without any good information to go with it and last week was busy.  I mean crazy-busy, but with moving and the end of the school year, I need to accept that this is going to be life for the foreseeable future.  So on to another census which means another form that you can download, input data, and save to your computer!

The 1930 census occurred during the Great Depression so it really gives us a special look into the lives of our ancestors.  There's lots of great information that you can read about regarding the data that was collected for the census, and always remember that there was more than the census for the general population.  You can head on over to the U.S. Census Bureau's website and see lots of great statistics about the information.  There were agriculture reports, reports on mining/quarries, unemployment, etc.  So many different ways that you can look into the lives of your ancestors!

Additionally, there was some drama surrounding the 1930 census because of the Great Depression.  You can read more about it by clicking here, but essentially, the statistics from the census were in high demand to assess just how bad the Depression was, but when the numbers came back they were criticized for being too low and the census was called "unreliable".  An additional census on unemployment was conducted in January 1931 and then another in 1937 (this last one was completely voluntary).

Of course there are lots of great places to look for information on the 1930 census (and all others) and I'm only throwing out a few things, but by far, the U.S. Census Bureau and 1930census.com are two of my favorite places to look.  1930census.com has great maps and historical tidbits to familiarize you with the decade, while the U.S. Census Bureau goes into more detail.

Well, on that note (and with a pretty good thunderstorm starting to hit outside here in Killeen, TX) I'm going to post the form and power-down the electronics.

As always, please let me know if there are any issues with the form.  For some reason the form keeps "tabbing" back to the first row, so until I can stop swearing at Excel and figure out how to fix that, you'll need to click in the row you want to input data.  It has something to do with tabbing through a line that isn't horizontal (the street name line and the notes box).  If anyone has any ideas/knowledge on how to correct this please let me know!

The form has been locked to keep you from accidentally deleting anything on the form.  It also (thank you Google Docs) looks like the document is more than one page sometimes, and sometimes it just looks like things are out of place when viewed on Google Docs, but rest assured that once you download it, it should be just one page!  You can access the form by clicking any of the links for "1930 census" or by clicking here.

Until next time, have fun tending those roots!