Wednesday, May 12, 2010

2010 Census Follow-up Phone Call

I had an interesting experience yesterday.  I got a phone call from the 2010 Census following up on the census form that our household submitted. 

You see, we had overnight houseguests on April 1st.  Question 2 asked if "there were any additional people staying here April 1, 2010 that you did not include in Question 1?"  So I marked the box that said relatives.  Seems the Census Bureau wanted to know more about that.  I think they were partly verifying I had understood the questions when I filled out the form.  However, they wanted the name, sex, age and all of the other information the census form asked of people living in our house.

So I guess the information will be there when it's released in 72 years.  Maybe our descendants will wonder why the cousins spent the night with us on April 1, 2010.  Ha - probably not but just in case, I've made a note on my copy of our census form.  They were on their way to hike the Grand Canyon.  I've included a picture too just for fun.

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

4 comments:

  1. Michelle,
    I currently follow your blog and saw your post about the census. I realized you are in Arizona so I thought I would invite you to the NAGS (Northern Arizona Genealogical Society) monthly meeting on May 22, 2010. The program is an all day seminar with Colleen Fitzpatrick, recent 1st place winner of the ISFHWE Excellence in Writing contest and DNA expert with the topic of DNA and genealogy. I don't know what part of Arizona you are in... the seminar is in Prescott Valley. If you are interested or want more information you can contact me at jarnspiger at cableone.net or see the NAGS site at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~aznags/

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  2. They left us a message on our phone; we don't know what it was about, but it may have been that I included our college-age daughter. She was home from college visiting on April 1 (not spring break, but Easter weekend), so I included her.

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  3. Greta, we had the same thing for our college student. They asked about that too.

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  4. That's interesting. My grandfather and his (married) mother are shown in another household in 1920. I wonder if they were visiting or if they were staying for a while (perhaps a trial separation). 72 years from now, those houseguests will lead to more questions. :)

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