Hi Cara No, as the way the USA takes the census is very different to how its done in the UK & Ireland In the USA they take it door to door with the enumerator taking the information down In the UK & Ireland a form (or schedule) is left with the householder to fill in and be collected after the census day, that schedule is then transcribed onto the forms we see today (except the Eng/Wales 1911 which is in the householders own hand) Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) On 26/08/2012 01:44, Cara wrote: > Would this pertain to the Irish Census? > > Cara > > Hello List, > > In case I'm not the only one in the world who didn't know this, an X > beside a 1940 census name indicates the informant or informants in a > household.

Nivard, The US census has been invaluable to me in reconstructing the history of my Irish ancestors who emigrated from Co. Dublin to Massachusetts and New York between 1900 and the early 1920's. I imagine that's true for other US researchers of Irish ancestors as well. And, when I've come across information in the pre-1940 censuses that seemed questionable, I've wished I knew who provided that information. Hence my interest in the 1940 innovation of identifying informants. Your message made me think about how the census is conducted now. I realized (duh!) that at some point US enumeration changed from personal interview to mail-back paper form. So I researched. The change began in 1960. Here's what I found: *** http://www.census.gov/history/www/innovations/data_collection/counting_the_population.html Counting the population >From the 18th through the middle of the 20th century, enumerators traveled from house to house to take the census. The enumerators filled in information on a census schedule for members of the household. A uniform printed population schedule was first developed and used for the 1830 census. Separate schedules were eventually used to collect information on manufacturing, commerce, mining and other economic activities. For the 1960 census, the Census Bureau mailed out questionnaires to households in urban areas. Householders were asked to complete the questionnaire and hold it until an enumerator came by to pick it up. In 1970, the Census Bureau implemented a mail-out/mail-back enumeration for households in larger metropolitan areas (approximately 60 percent the U.S. population). Today, mail-out/mail-back procedures are used extensively for both the census and surveys. Self-enumeration by mail improves quality of the resulting data and reduces costs. In the 1990s, the Census Bureau developed electronic data collection methods. New interviewing techniques, including computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), complemented mail-out/mail-back procedures and helped cut costs. Electronic reporting, employing computer tape, diskettes, e-mail, and electronic questionnaires, made it easier for businesses to respond to economic surveys and censuses. *** Thanks for the memory prod. PJ > Hi Cara > > No, as the way the USA takes the census is very different to how its > done in the UK & Ireland > > In the USA they take it door to door with the enumerator taking the > information down