Census records for nomadic circus employees
I'm one of the family history consultants in my ward. I'm helping a member who had an interesting question. Apparently she has an ancestor who worked for a circus. Since circus employees own nothing and were basically nomadic, does anyone know if they were ever included in the census?
Answers
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Whether the ancestor was enumerated may depend on how the individual enumerator and his/her supervisor interpreted the instructions. I remember when the 1940 census first became available, I was excited to find my mother. I knew the exact address where she was living, but she was not listed. Her parents were counted, but my mother was living in a boarding house, a few miles away, working in the town bank. My mother was not listed with her parents nor in the boarding house.
I pulled out the instructions to enumerators for 1930 as an example.
118. Dwelling house defined.-A dwelling house, for census purposes, is a place in which, at the time of the census, one or more persons regularly sleep. It need not be a house in the usual sense of the word, but may be a room, in a factory, store, or office building, a loft over a garage, a boat, a tent, a freight car, or the like.
But, in 1900, we see
65. ….make a return of every man, woman, and child whose usual place of abode ON THE FIRST DAY OF JUNE, 1900, was in your district.
You'll find the instructions for each census here.Hope this helps.
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@Teri Anderson The census bureau made provisions to account for individuals in temporary residences such as you mention. In 1940 there were a set of special population schedule sheets [81-series] appended to an enumeration district which showed such places. Also in 1940 non-resident schedules were employed. The bureau's goal was to capture everyone, but when the population was more mobile, it made it more of a challenge
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