The first census that I had to fill out as an adult was in 1980. Most folks received a brief form, but it was announced that a small percentage would randomly receive a more detailed form to fill out. I happened to be one who received the detailed form. It asked all kinds of probing questions about anything you could imagine and took me a while to fill out completely. I recall that I had to spread filling it out over several sessions rather than at one shot in order to do it without totally losing my patience LOL. I was the only person in my circle who had received the long census form that year, even though it was quite publicized as being legit. I received a short form in 1990 and in 2000. Today I also received a short form in the mail for 2010. My Mom is not really into family tree research, but she has been quite impressed with the detail I have been able to find about our family tree in the older historic censuses. She was actually disappointed that this year's form didn't ask for some of the historically interesting details similar to what I've shown her on some of the older forms. Regards, Karen >Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:37:57 -0400 >From: "PMcSwain" >Subject: Re: [NYMADISO] NYMADISO Digest, Vol 5, Issue 32 >To: >Message-ID: >Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; > reply-type=original > >as I am told - some persons will get a form with more questions on them- the >extra info is used for economic reasons- and such- builders and or >commercial look at the financial security of an area to decide where to >place business - no names are shown on that part of the census records- they >may ask about items one may own- such as boats -and such- car insurance- all >these things help someone I guess- not everyone will recieve this type of >form- not sure how they target certain areas- >Peggy