What does M2 mean in the 1910 census?

Second or later marriage. M1 is a first marriage. Paired with the years-married column it dates the remarriage, and the children's ages often show which marriage each came from.

Union Army and Confederate Army, in the veteran column. UN and CN are the navies. A UA points to a pension file.

Record columns

Reading the 1910 US census, column by column

1910 keeps most of 1900 and adds detail that earlier decades never asked: whether this is a first or later marriage, what language a person speaks, the industry they work in and whether they are an employer, a wage worker or working on their own account, and whether a man served in the Union or Confederate forces. Reading it is mostly reading codes.

Date: April 15, 1910
Columns: 30
Handwriting: Business hand with some Spencerian habits. The industry column holds the most unusual words on the page ("glass factory", "street railway") and the most misreadings.

The columns in order

The 30 columns of the 1910 US census in the order they are printed, and what the clerk wrote in each.
#	Column	What it holds
1	Street	Street name, written vertically down the margin and dittoed.
2	House no.	House number as posted; blank in rural districts.
3	Dwelling no.	The enumerator's running count of houses visited, not a street number. Several families can share a dwelling.
4	Family no.	Running count of households. A boarder or servant is listed within the family that housed them.
5	Name	Surname first, then given name; the surname is often written once and dittoed for the rest of the family. Spelled as the enumerator heard it.
6	Relationship to head	Head, Wife, Son, Dau (daughter), Mother, Father, Sis, Bro, Boarder, Lodger, Servant, Hired man, Son-in-law, Grandson, Adopted dau, Partner, Inmate.
7	Sex	M or F.
8	Color	W white, B black, Mu mulatto; from 1870 also Ch Chinese, In Indian; later Jp, Fil, Hin, Kor. Written as the enumerator judged, not as the person said.
9	Age	Age at last birthday, as given by whoever answered the door. Infants in fractions ("2/12" is two months). Treat every age as within five years.
10	Marital status	S single, M married, W widowed, D divorced; 1910 adds M1 first marriage, M2 second or later; 1950 writes Mar, Nev (never married), Wd, D, Sep.
11	Years of present marriage	Years in the present marriage.
12	Mother of how many children	Number of children ever born to this woman, including those who died.
13	Children living	Number of those children alive on census day. The gap between the two columns is a family's infant deaths.
14	Birthplace	A state or a country, as the enumerator wrote it: "Ohio", "Ireland", "Prussia", "Bohemia". Pre-1900 abbreviations are frequent (Pa, O, Va, Ind).
15	Father's birthplace	State or country of the father; the same abbreviations as the birthplace column.
16	Mother's birthplace	State or country of the mother.
17	Year of immigration	Year of arrival in the United States, as remembered — often a round number.
18	Naturalization	Na naturalized, Pa first papers filed, Al alien; 1930 adds Na, Pa, Al with a year elsewhere.
19	Language spoken	English, or the language spoken at home: German, Polish, Yiddish, Italian, Swedish.
20	Occupation	As stated; "keeping house", "at home", "farm laborer", "none". Children "at school". A blank is a blank, not "none".
21	Industry	The kind of business, paired with the occupation: "salesman" / "dry goods store".
22	Employer, worker or own account	Emp employer, W wage or salary worker, OA own account (self-employed).
23	Out of work	A tick or a number of weeks.
24	Can read	Yes or No.
25	Can write	Yes or No.
26	Attended school	A tick or the number of months if the person attended school in the past year.
27	Home owned or rented	O owned, R rented.
28	Owned free or mortgaged	F free of mortgage, M mortgaged.
29	Farm or house	F farm, H house.
30	Civil War veteran	UA Union Army, UN Union Navy, CA Confederate Army, CN Confederate Navy.

What to watch for on this form

Marital status: M1 first marriage, M2 second or later; S, Wd, D. A woman shown M2 with few years married is a remarriage worth chasing.
Civil War veterans: UA Union Army, UN Union Navy, CA Confederate Army, CN Confederate Navy.
Employer / worker / own account: Emp, W, OA. A farmer is usually OA; a farm laborer W.
No birth month or year this time — 1900 was the only one.

Abbreviations and marks

do / " / „ — ditto — the same as the line above
Hd — head of household
Wf — wife
Dau — daughter
S-in-L — son-in-law
Bdr — boarder
Svt — servant
Na / Pa / Al — naturalized / first papers / alien
O / R — home owned / rented
F / M — free of mortgage / mortgaged
W / B / Mu — white / black / mulatto in the color column
S / M / W / D — single / married / widowed / divorced
x, / , 1 — a tick in a yes/no column
2/12 — two months old
Pa, O, Va, Ind, Ky — state abbreviations in the birthplace column

Rows to CSV

Type one person per line with cells separated by a tab or a |, in the column order above. Blank cells may be left empty; write [illegible] where you cannot read. The CSV is built by the same code the app uses for its export.

Rows

Questions

What does M2 mean in the 1910 census?: Second or later marriage. M1 is a first marriage. Paired with the years-married column it dates the remarriage, and the children's ages often show which marriage each came from.
What are UA and CA?: Union Army and Confederate Army, in the veteran column. UN and CN are the navies. A UA points to a pension file.

About this page

Column lists follow the printed schedule or register form; descriptions are in our own words from the National Archives' census instructions to enumerators, the FamilySearch Research Wiki and the usual parish-register handbooks. This is the same column list Cursive Lens reads the page against; a test in the app fails if the two ever disagree. Last reviewed 2026-10-17.