1910 Census

OK, getting off the political soapbox I've been on lately . . .

Today, yours truly is contemplating the census, instead.

I saw on TV today, that we should be receiving our 2010 census forms in the mail in March.

It got me wondering how this year's stats will stack up to the data collected a hundred years ago.

I pulled out the file of 1910 Census data I've collected on my forebears.

I found my Morgan ancestors were living over in Crystal River, while my Cox family was already living here in Orlando. Within a couple of years they would become next door neighbors in the latter place.

My Macy great-grandfather was still living with his folks in Pine Castle, a little town south of Orlando. His wife was still living on her father's farm up in Chambers County, Alabama.

My mother's people were still clustered in the crowded neighborhoods of Jersey City, New Jersey; though her Jackson forebears were working in the not-too-distant beach resort town of Long Branch. Every one of the households included at least one person who was born in a foreign country (Ireland).

The average household included six people. Nearly half were engaged in some form of agriculture. And, one was still working as a blacksmith, a line of work that has definitely tapered-off over the last century.

As peculiar as these enumerations may seem to those of us living in 2010, I wonder how much more peculiar they will seem to some as-yet-unborn descendants in 2110. Probably only slightly moreso than the data we'll be submitting on our own households this year . . .