Place question
I have a census that has a birth place in a 1920 United States Census that says "Poland Austria." I'm not sure if it is Poland or Austria. I looked up this in the wiki and it seems that it is Austria. It says that Austria took possession of the southern part of Poland in 1772. Any ideas?
Answers
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The answer to "Poland or Austria?" in 1920 could very well be "yes".
By the time the 1920 U.S. Census began (on 1 Jan 1920), the Treaty of Versailles was technically about half a year old, but it didn't officially go into effect until 10 Jan 1920 — and even then, many people (especially in the U.S.) weren't quite sure what it actually meant, on a practical level. This means that there was much confusion and variability in what country was recorded in that census.
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You will find the instructions to enumerators in the 1920 US Census for that field in the "Nativity and Mother Tongue" Section, Part 139: https://usa.ipums.org/usa/voliii/inst1920.shtml
139. If a person says he was born in Austria, Germany, Russia, or Turkey as they were before the war, enter the name of the Province (State or Region) in which born, as Alsace-Lorraine, Bohemia, Bavaria, German or Russian Poland, Croatia, Galicia, Finland, Slovakland, etc.; or the name of the city or town in which born, as Berlin, Prague, Vienna, etc.
I've found many census entries where the enumerator wrote what the person offered while a supervisor later amended the place based on those instructions.
You'll find similar confusion in the 1930 census for persons born in the various counties of Ireland since some of the counties physically in the north did not become part of Northern Ireland.
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