I just copied and pasted this for you from another list. Thought some of you might like it. I will add to this a fact I found out: Census takers wrote on anything they had and re-copied into standard 'census books'...If you ever do that, you know how many mistakes you make! Thats even with facts that are important to YOU. What if you are tried, underpaid and don't much care. It a wonder we have the quality we have. Carleen Ever wonder what instructions the enumerators were given as they went forward to complete the various state census? This was offered on another list that I belong to http://www.ipums.umn.edu/~pipums/voliii/tEnumInstr.html I have also found sites that state that at various times the enumerators were expected to provide their own materials - which resulted in inferior paper and some of the poorer quality census documents that we now view. Also some of the enumerators discovered that they were actually losing money by being involved with the census. We have all heard stories of the inhabitants of a household not being available and therefore neighbors supplied the information for the absent family. I have even heard that its possible that a family may appear twice in a census year due to the length of time that was taken to complete the census - a family might have moved during that period and end up being counted again in another area. <A HREF="http://www.ipums.umn.edu/~pipums/voliii/tEnumInstr.html">Enumerator Instructions</A>