Extracting Information From a 1930 U.S. Census Record

I gleaned a significant amount of information from an obituary last week in Gleaning Information From a Record or Article (posted 14 October 2013), so I thought that I would do a similar task with a 1930 United States census record.  My purpose in doing this is to get practice doing it, determine if I have missed anything, and to provide another example.

My Carringer grandparents resided in San Diego and were enumerated there in April 1930 for the census.  Here is the census page with the family entry:

The snippet for the Lyle L. Carringer family:

1)  Here is the information I captured for the household:

*  The Lyle L. Carringer family resided in San Diego City, which was in San Diego township, in San Diego County, in the State of California.
*  The household was enumerated on 5 April 1930 by Mrs. Georgia A. Stooks.
*  The Lyle L. Carringer family resided at 2130 Fern Street.
*  Four persons resided in this home, Lyle L. Carringer, Emily K. Carringer, Betty V. Carringer, and Georgia K. Auble.

2)  Information for Lyle L. Carringer includes:

*  Lyle was head of the household
*  Lyle owned the home that they lived in, which was valued at $10,000.
*  Lyle owned a radio set.
*  Lyle's sex was male.
*  Lyle's race was white
*  Lyle's age at last birthday was 38
*  Lyle was married, and was married first at age 26
*  Lyle did not attend school since Sept. 1, 1929
*  Lyle was able to read and write
*  Lyle was born in California
*  Lyle's father was born in Pennsylvania
*  Lyle's mother was born in Wisconsin
*  Lyle was able to speak English
*  Lyle's occupation was Office Work in the Dry Goods industry
*  Lyle was a Worker
*  Lyle was employed on the last working day before enumeration
*  Lyle was a Veteran, who served in the World War

3)  Information for Emily K. Carringer:

*  Emily was the wife of the head of the household (Lyle L. Carringer)
*  Emily's sex was female
*  Emily's race was white
*  Emily's age at last birthday was 30
*  Emily was married, and was married first at age 18
*  Emily did not attend school since Sept. 1, 1929
*  Emily was able to read and write
*  Emily was born in Illinois
*  Emily's father was born in New Jersey
*  Emily's mother was born in Canada English
*  Emily was able to speak English
*  Emily had no occupation

4)  Information for Betty V. Carringer:

*  Betty was the daughter of the head of the household (Lyle L. Carringer)
*  Betty's sex was female
*  Betty's race was white
*  Betty's age at last birthday was 10
*  Betty was single
*  Betty did attend school since Sept. 1, 1929
*  Betty was able to read and write
*  Betty was born in California
*  Betty's father was born in California
*  Betty's mother was born in Illinois
*  Betty was able to speak English
*  Betty had no occupation

5)  Information for Georgia K. Auble:

*  Georgia was the mother-in-law of the head of the household (Lyle L. Carringer)
*  Georgia's sex was female
*  Georgia's race was white
*  Georgia's age at last birthday was 61
*  Georgia was widowed
*  Georgia did not attend school since Sept. 1, 1929
*  Georgia was able to read and write
*  Georgia was born in Canada English
*  Georgia's father was born in Canada English
*  Georgia's mother was born in Canada English
*  Georgia's native language was English
*  Georgia immigrated to the United States in 1890
*  Georgia was a naturalized U.S. citizen
*  Georgia was able to speak English
*  Georgia had no occupation

6)  Many of those assertions could be included in a source citation for residence, home ownership, spousal and parent-child relationships, gender, race, approximate birth year, approximate marriage year, birth place, father and mother birth places, occupation, immigration date, citizenship status, education, literacy, etc.  

The source citation for this 1930 U.S. Census Event is:

1930 United States Federal Census, San Diego County, California, Population Schedule, San Diego city; ED 37-116, Sheet 5A, Dwelling #142, Family #148, Lyle L. Carringer household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 29 July 2012); citing National Archives Microfilm Publication T626, Roll 192.

All in all, it is a very useful exercise to try to capture all of the information in some sort of summary.  The information provided can be used as finding aids for more information in previous census records, in vital records, in land records, in military records, in immigration records, in citizenship records, in cemetery records, etc.  

After extracting the information above, I can enter the information into my genealogy database program.  I can copy and paste the data summary above into the Note for the 1930 Census Event in my genealogy database program, and/or into the Person Note for each person.  I can create a Census Event for each person in the household, along with a Source citation for the Event.  I can attach the document image to each person mentioned in the document, and tag it to the specific Event.

What information do you think I missed, or could have worded better?  When you obtain census information from a source, what information do you enter it into your genealogy database as Events, Relationships, Notes, Media, etc.  

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/10/extracting-information-from-1930-us.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver