Enumerating and ruminating

Well, it's now official, ye socks. Yours truly has completed the enumeration of his humble abode for the 2010 Census.

It's got me thinking how much things have changed with our republic's little decennial tradition.

We no longer have census takers trekking about, knocking on doors, and asking probing questions.

Instead, we get these sterile forms in the mail. And, the questions they ask us are so bland.

I mean, if you really start digging into old census records, you'll find they reveal a whole lot of really cool info on our ancestors. (ie the 1900 enumeration duplicated here . . . see if you can spot the Morgans!)

Wonder what posterity will think of the 2010 data . . .

Anyway, if any of ye local socks want to delve into the older, more interesting census records (1790-1930), I would encourage you to get an Orange County library card. That entitles you to access the images for free online thru their "Heritage Quest" subscription.

Now, off to the post office to get this thing mailed . . .

Get ready to . . . get ready!

So, yours truly gets home from work today to find a letter waiting in his snailmail box.

It's from our friends over at the Census Bureau.

Apparently, they felt the need to send me a letter to let me know that they're going to be sending me another letter later.

Absurd?

Well, maybe not.

Not being one to give federal bureaucrats much of a benefit of the doubt, I suppose this stupid letter can serve some purpose.

That is, if they got it returned to them by the post office, at least they would know they had a bad address and MAYBE they wouldn't send out the letter they wrote the letter about . . . MAYBE!

Let it go . . . let it go . . . let it go . . .

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 . . .

This makes no census!

Well, ye socks, the latest over-reach by the ObamaNation really has yours truly reeling.

In case you haven't heard, Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) declined his nomination as the next Secretary of Commerce.

He did this, because he found out Rahmbo and the White House staff were going to yank control of the U.S. Census out of the hands of the Commerce Department officials who have traditionally overseen the enumeration every ten years. Instead, they want to run the head count from the West Wing . . . as if they didn't have enough on their plates when it comes to overseeing the downward spiral into socialism.

Why is this such a big deal, you ask?

Well, it's a big deal because the new maladministration wants to flout 220 years of precedent and a constitutional mandate to conduct an actual head count. Instead, they want to use "statistical sampling." Basically, they will make up the numbers to satisfy who THEY think lives in a given geographic area versus who is actually there.

No room for Chicago-style shenanigans with that approach, right?!

As an avid genealogist and amateur historian, the possibility of some partisan hack pulling numbers out of the air is even more distressing. It will do away with those handy enumerations full of biographical detail that have helped so many of us research our family trees and local heritage.

The good news is, we've survived this threat before. Ten years ago, Slick Willie tried the same thing and was slapped down by a Supreme Court ruling. Perhaps the ObamaNation will come to their census senses before we have to repeat history thru litigation.

Hope and change!