Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Workday Wednesday ~ Uncle Chester, Census Enumerator

My great grandfather, Percy Hunter, was one of ten children. All of the siblings were born and died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, except for one brother, Chester Audley Hunter.

Great great uncle Chester married a woman from West Virginia and moved to Morgantown, West Virginia, where I found him in the 1930 U.S. Federal Census.

1930 U.S. Federal Census, Union City, Monongalia, West Virginia; Roll: 2548; Page: 12A;
Enumeration District: 27; Record for Chester A. Hunter
The last two names on this page are Chester A. Hunter and Minnie D. Hunter, who had married two years before. Farther to the right, under the occupation column, you see that Chester's occupation is Enumerator and his industry is Census. Then below that you see that he has signed off on this Enumeration District 31-27:


I can't wait to see if he was an enumerator in the 1940 US Census! And 72 years later, his great great niece (me) is a 1940 US Census Ambassador!

Following is a video created by the US Census Bureau to train enumerators on the correct procedures for filling out the 1940 US Census. About two minutes in, you can see how an enumerator might have interviewed a resident to obtain information about the households in his Enumeration District.



Workday Wednesday is a daily blogging prompt from Geneabloggers, the genealogy community's resource for blogging. It is used by many genealogy bloggers to help them tell stories of their ancestors.

4 comments:

  1. Elizabeth - This is a great find. I hope you find Percy as an enumerator in 1940 also!

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  2. Denise, thanks for reading and commenting. I do have to find his enumeration district in West Virginia unless I want to wait for the index.

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  3. How cool, Elizabeth! Funny, I was just thinking the other day while looking at a census record, "wouldn't it be funny if one of my relatives was actually a census enumerator?" And you have one that was!

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  4. Karen - exactly my feeling as I was looking at this census record. When I realized that his occupation was enumerator working for the census, and I looked up and there was his name at the top, it was one of those "cool!" moments in my research. Thanks for reading and commenting.

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