Here's a thought that struck me only yesterday when I was doing some research in the US censuses..... People often complain in this country that the census questions get more and more intrusive every decade, though whether there will ever be another one seems to be up in the air at the moment. However, I was doing some research in the US censuses in connection with the latest subject for my Famous family trees blog at Findmypast (a UK celebrity with an American connection) and looked at the censuses from 1840 to 1940 online. Looking at the census for Brooklyn in 1870, I suddenly noticed that there were two columns (8 and 9) headed "Value of Real Estate" and "Value of Personal Estate". The person I was looking at said they had real estate worth 10,000 dollars and personal estate of 3,000 dollars, which I imagine was quite a lot in 1870. Whether the question about personal estate related to furniture, household effects, etc, or actual cash was not clear. Checking further, I discovered the same questions about real and personal estate values were asked in 1860 also but in 1850 only the question about real estate value appeared. The questions about the value of real and personal estate appear to have disappeared by the census of 1880 - perhaps too many people objected to being asked such personal questions. I find it interesting that in America, the land of liberty and dislike of government interference, such questions could ever have appeared in a census at all. Someone may prove me wrong but I don't recall any UK census asking a question about property values and certainly not how much money you had in the bank. I can imagine the outcry if they did! -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Famous family trees blog: http://blog.findmypast.co.uk/tag/roy-stockdill/ "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE