Hello all, I was looking for my parents in the 1940 census. They were both attending college then and were living either in college dormitories or in sorority/fraternity houses. I did a page-by-page surname search of the entire town (Auburn, AL; 5 districts, excluding the CCC camp, which I did not look at; 227 images at Ancestry). One of the districts was solely for the university and was just one and part of another image long. Listed there were some faculty members and some house mothers or heads of hall for dormitories or fraternities, but no students. I could not find my parents anywhere in the town, and there were no concentrations of lodgers or boarders that might suggest on-campus or off-campus student housing. ## So, I explored what the enumeration rules were. Here's what I found for the 1940 CENSUS. http://www.census.gov/history/pdf/1940instructions.pdf page 24 of 88 "306. Persons to be counted as members of the household include the following: a. Members of the household temporarily absent at the time of the enumeration, either in foreign countries or elsewhere in the United States, on business or visiting. b. Members of the household attending schools or colleges located in other districts, except student nurses away from home and students in the Naval Academy at Annapolis, or in the Military Academy at West Point, or in any other training school or institution operated by the War or the Navy Departments or the United States Coast Guard. c. Members of the household who are in a hospital or a sanitarium but who are expected to return in a short period of time. d. Servants or other employees who live with the household or sleep in the same dwelling. e. Boarders or lodgers who sleep in the house. f. Members of the household enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). 307. In the great majority of cases the names of absent members will not be given to you by the persons furnishing the information, unless particular attention is called to them. Before finishing the enumeration of a household, therefore, you should ask the question "Are there any members of the household who are absent?" This is why I did not find my parents in their college town. My father was not listed at his parents' home in the 1940 census, so paragraph 307 is noteworthy. I haven't checked my mother's parental home yet. ## For future reference, the rule changed for the 1950 CENSUS. Here's what I came across: http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/00322994ch02.pdf page 11 (I transcribed the text because it could be copied and pasted only as an image.) "Colleges For the 1950 Census of Population, college students were enumerated at the colleges rather than at their parental homes, as was the practice in previous censuses. This procedure brough tthe enumeration of college students under the general census rule which prescribes that each person should be enumerated a this usual place of residence. Most students live in college communities for as much as nine months of the year, so the college is their usual place of residence. The 1950 rule for the enumeration of college students was adopted not only because it was in accord with the "usual place of residence rule," but also because the Bureau expected the procedure to result in a more complete enumeration of college students. Such persons were often overlooked in the enumeration of their parental homes. In planning for this revised enumeration procedure, the Bureau mailed questionnaires to all large educational institutions early in 1948. It asked for information concerning the location and size of the institution, the number of students housed in college dormitories, and the location of these facilities. This survey disclosed that many of the students do not live on the college campus; therefore, educational institutions were not set up as separate enumeration districts. The information on the questionnaire was used, however, to help measure the workload for each enumeration district." ## PJ Texas