Census Records

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Getting the most out of census records

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Census records from 1900-1930 include immigration dates for immigrants.

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The 1920 census was begun on 1 January 1920. The enumeration was to be completed within thirty days, or two weeks for communities with populations of more than 2,500.

Questions Asked in the 1920 Census 

1. Name of street, avenue road, etc.; 
   
2. house number or farm; 
3. number of dwelling in order of visitation; 
4. number of family in order of visitation; 
5. name of each person whose place of abode was with the family; relationship of person enumerated to the head of the family; 
6. whether home owned or rented; if owned, whether free or mortgaged; 
7. sex; color or race; age at last birthday; 
8. whether single, married, widowed, or divorced; 
9. year of immigration to United States; whether naturalized or alien; if naturalized, year of naturalization; 
10. whether attended school any time since 1 September 1919; whether able to read; whether able to write; 
11. person’s place of birth; mother tongue; 
12. father’s place of birth; father’s mother tongue; 
13. mother’s place of birth; mother’s mother tongue; 
14. whether able to speak English; 
15. trade, profession, or particular kind of work done; industry, business, or establishment in which at work; whether employer, salary or wage worker, or working on own account; number of farm schedule.
    

Enumerators were instructed not to report servicemen in the family enumerations but to treat them as residents of their duty posts. The 1920 census includes schedules and a Soundex index for overseas military and naval forces.

The 1920 census asked the foreign-born for the year of their arrival in the United States, making it easier to pinpoint the date of passenger arrival records. It also asked the naturalization status of every foreign-born person and inquired about the year of naturalization for those individuals who had become U.S. citizens, thus facilitating searches in naturalization records.

Due to the more specific questions asked of immigrants from Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey regarding their birthplaces and those of their parents, many researchers will be able to discover the exact towns or regions from which their families emigrated. The fact that the 1920 census asked for the mother tongue of each respondent and that of each parent will further help to define the origins of many families.

The original 1920 census schedules were destroyed by authorization of the Eighty-third Congress, so it is not possible to consult originals when microfilm copies prove unreadable.

The information above is an excerpt from The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy, edited by Loretto D. Szucs and Sandra H. Luebking, Chapter 5, “Research in Census Records,” by Loretto D. Szucs (page 117).