Richard A. Pence wrote: >it seems quite appropriate >that your email handle is "myths." <g> >My view would be if a book >such as you describe was used in the 1970 census, it sure wouldn't >be any secret at this point! (I chose "myths" deliberately <grin>. Most "facts" turn out to be theories.) I've asked the person that told me, in June/July 1970, about the 1970 census when I visited her (from the UK), whether she remembers the conversation, and the book. She replied "I don't remember the particulars about being polka-dotted or striped, but I do remember that if you said you were Indian in some locations you were to be listed as negro and in some locations as Mexican. The instructions you saw at the http://www.ipums.umn.edu/~pipums/voliii/inst1970.html website are for the respondents filling out the form. The instructions I talked about were those given to the census-taker who did home visits on a sample of the population." I now wonder if the "book" was not so much for the questionnaire, but for the analysis - I notice from http://www.ssc.upenn.edu/ssc/ssdc/codebooks/cb0018.html that households were divided into negro and non-negro, a division that "fits" my friend's memory better than does the questionnaire itself, though I can see (knowing the ethnic background of her children) that the conversation might have started with question 13b. In which case my comment was irrelevant to a genealogical newsgroup - I apologise. myths@ic24.net