TIPFirst try to find your family using an on-line census index which can be found at HeritageQuest (TX only) or Ancestry. Check with your local or state library to see if they have a subscription. If you cannot find your family through using the index, try the steps, below. It was quite easy for me to find my family this way, before the index was available. |
| The official date of the 1930 (or Fifteenth) Census of the United States was April 1930; due to legislation which requires the census not be made available to the public for 72 years, it was not released to the public until April 1, 2002. This census contains much of the same information as found on previous censuses with the addition of several new questions most notably: the value of home, if owned, or monthly rental, if rented; whether or not they owned a radio; the age they were at the time of their first marriage; and for Veterans, which war or expedition they participated in. The census is only available on microfilm; the actual census was destroyed by the Bureau of the Census after it was microfilmed in 1949. The NARA web site has available an image of the 1930 census form and a list of the questions asked by the enumerators.
In the late 1930s, the Work Projects Administration (WPA) began indexing the census; however, in the early 1940s, the money ran out and when the WPA closed down the Soundex project was left unfinished. For the 1930 census, only 10 states (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN and VA) were fully soundexed and 2 others (KY and WVA) were partially indexed (the counties of Bell, Floyd, Harlan, Kenton, Muhlenberg, Perry and Pike in KY were indexed and the counties of Fayette, Harrison, Kanawha, Logan, McDowell, Mercer and Raleigh in WVA were indexed). This means, unfortunately, that there is no Soundex index available for most of the United States, including Kaufman County, TX so in order to locate the entry containing the information on your family, you will need to manually search through the pages of the Enumeration District (ED) they lived in during April of 1930. When the Bureau of the Census assigned areas for the enumerators to visit, it divided counties, cities, towns, villages, Indian reservations, hospitals and jails into EDs. Major cities and other heavily populated areas were divided into dozens or even hundreds of EDs while rural counties and places were divided into only a few (or even a single) EDs. Each county was assigned a number, and each ED within the county was an additional number. When looking for your family, it is not necessary to know exactly which ED they were in; the EDs were small enough that if you can narrow down the area to a handful of EDs, it shouldn't take you very long to search through the pages of those districts to find the correct entry. The Kaufman County census for 1930 is all contained on NARA microfilm publication T626 roll #2366. Kaufman County had 27 Enumeration Districts and 8 EDs for the Institutions. (Click the hyper-links to view the EDs.) If you know your family lived in a certain town or area in Kaufman County in April 1930, go directly to that ED on the microfilm and begin looking through the pages for them. If you know the ED of where they lived in 1920 and you know they didn't move, you may also use the cross-reference on NARA Microfilm Publication T1224 to find what ED that same location had in 1930. Since Kaufman County was not a highly populated area, you should have no problem finding your family in the census once you've found their address. You should be able to figure out quite easily which ED or EDs to look in and all that's left is for you to look through the pages of the EDs. If you don't know where your family lived, then you're in for some real research to find out which Enumeration Districts to look in. To narrow your search, first you'll need to find the address (or at least the state, county and area of the county) where they lived. (If they lived in a large city, you'll need to narrow down their location to a handful of EDs in that city which contain the street they lived on). This information may be obtained from the following sources:
However, if your family didn't live in Kaufman County, you may still have more research to do. If you find out they lived in a very large city, you may use the NARA microfilm M1931, Index to Selected City Streets and Enumeration Districts, 1930 Census which is contained on 7 microfilm rolls. This NARA microfilm series cross-references street addresses with Enumeration Districts for more than 50 of the largest cities; smaller communities near these large cities may also be included. The only city in Texas for which this is available is San Antonio so this doesn't apply if you are searching for people who lived in Kaufman County. Once you have narrowed down the location, you'll need to look at a map of the area to find out just where the address is located and match it with the correct ED for 1930. Enumeration District maps can be found on NARA microfilms M1930, Enumeration District Maps for the Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930 (36 rolls -- TX is on roll 32). These maps show the boundaries and the number of each Enumeration District. However, these microfilms are hard to read, so don't get your hopes up. The NARA site has a search you can use to list the streets and will return some EDs with any street listed which was a boundary street used for the EDs. However, if the family lived on a street adjacent to one of the boundary streets, searching on their street name will not show up in the ED data and you'll need to use a map as a guide to figure out which EDs the street address is most likely located in. The EDs were laid out and numbered in rows with the ED number in ascending order from west to east. [Information about Enumeration Districts When the Bureau of the Census assigned areas for census takers to visit when collecting information from residents, it divided counties, cities, towns, villages, Indian reservations, and even hospitals and jails into enumeration districts (ED). Heavily populated areas like major cities would have dozens or even hundreds of EDs while rural counties and places would have only a few or one. Each county was assigned a number, and each ED within it was then numbered consecutively. When the census schedule sheets were compiled, they were arranged by state, county, city or township, and thereunder by ED number. They appear in this order on the microfilm. The Bureau of the Census carefully recorded descriptions of each ED. In large cities, most descriptions included only the streets that bounded the district. Often the boundaries matched those of city wards or election precincts. ED descriptions did not include streets other than the boundary streets; i.e., interior streets were not listed. In rural areas the description might include geographic features like rivers or hills or the names of villages, post offices, or Indian reservations. Institutions such as hospitals, schools, jails, and orphan asylums were assigned enumeration districts. The 1930 Census Microfilm Locator includes transcriptions of all ED boundaries. The complete original descriptions are also available as Microfilm publication number T1224, Descriptions of census Enumeration Districts, 1830 - 1950 (rolls 61 to 90 include the 1930 census). This microfilm publication is available at all NARA facilities nationwide. The Bureau of the Census also used contemporary maps upon which it overlaid, often just with grease pencil notations, the boundaries and numbers of enumeration districts. The quality and visual clarity of the maps varied considerably. The complete set of these maps is available as National Archives Microfilm Publication M1930, Enumeration District Maps for the Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. This microfilm publication is available at all NARA facilities nationwide. If the family lived on a street adjacent to one of the boundary streets, searching on their street name will not show up in the ED data. For an example, click on the ED map for this area. Myrtle, Laurel, and Chapman Streets do not show up as ED boundaries, but you can see on the map that they belong to the EDs listed here. One can see from these results that one must be familiar with the local geography of Multnomah County in order to determine which of the five EDs listed might be the right one. Consulting the appropriate contemporary ED map (or even a current map) would assist the search.] Geographic descriptions of each Enumeration District can be found on NARA microfilms T-1224, Descriptions of Enumeration Districts, 1830-1950 (156 rolls -- rolls 61-90 are for the 1930 census). The descriptions are arranged by state, then by county. It is recommended you bring a copy of the map with you when you look at the census. The U. S. Census Bureau has on-line modern-day maps which may be helpful in your search as well. You can enter an address to see maps of the area. Please keep in mind, however, that street names and geography can change over the years. After you've done everything you can to locate as closely as you can where your family lived in April of 1930, you will still have to do a manual search through the pages of the ED of the census in order to locate your family's entries. Good Luck! If you are new to genealogical research, also take a look at the Kaufman County page for "newbies". |
| The information on the facts about the 1930 Census contained on this page was taken from various pages of the NARA website located at http://1930census.archives.gov/ and from in the NARA branch research room handouts "1930 Census Research: Summary Handout" and "1930 Census fast facts" and the binders available on the research room table of the branch in San Bruno, CA, 2002. |