Record columns
Reading the 1920 US census, column by column
1920 was taken in January, with the map of Europe freshly redrawn, so the birthplace columns name Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia where 1910 said Russia, Austria or Hungary — and the mother-tongue columns, asked of each person and both parents, often say more about origins than the country does. It also asks the year of naturalization, which points straight at a court record.
- Date
- January 1, 1920
- Columns
- 28
- Handwriting
- Plain business hand (Palmer). Country and language names are the words most often mangled: "Jugo Slavia", "Checo Slovakia", "Ger.", "Yid.".
The columns in order
| # | 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 | Home owned or rented | O owned, R rented. |
| 8 | Owned free or mortgaged | F free of mortgage, M mortgaged. |
| 9 | Sex | M or F. |
| 10 | 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. |
| 11 | 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. |
| 12 | 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. |
| 13 | Year of immigration | Year of arrival in the United States, as remembered — often a round number. |
| 14 | Naturalized or alien | Na naturalized, Pa first papers, Al alien. |
| 15 | Year naturalized | The year of naturalization, which points to a court record. |
| 16 | Attended school | A tick or the number of months if the person attended school in the past year. |
| 17 | Can read | Yes or No. |
| 18 | Can write | Yes or No. |
| 19 | Birthplace | A state or a country, as the enumerator wrote it: "Ohio", "Ireland", "Prussia", "Bohemia". Pre-1900 abbreviations are frequent (Pa, O, Va, Ind). |
| 20 | Mother tongue | The language of the home in childhood, not the country: "German" for a family from Russia, "Yiddish", "Polish". |
| 21 | Father's birthplace | State or country of the father; the same abbreviations as the birthplace column. |
| 22 | Father's mother tongue | The father's childhood language. |
| 23 | Mother's birthplace | State or country of the mother. |
| 24 | Mother's mother tongue | The mother's childhood language. |
| 25 | Speaks English | Yes or No; when No, 1910 and 1920 name the language spoken instead. |
| 26 | Occupation | As stated; "keeping house", "at home", "farm laborer", "none". Children "at school". A blank is a blank, not "none". |
| 27 | Industry | The kind of business, paired with the occupation: "salesman" / "dry goods store". |
| 28 | Employer, worker or own account | Emp employer, W wage or salary worker, OA own account (self-employed). |
What to watch for on this form
- Birthplace follows post-war borders; enumerators were told to write the province for the former Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia and Turkey, and many did ("Galicia", "Posen", "Bohemia").
- Mother tongue is the language of the home, not the country: "Yiddish", "German" for a family from Russia, "Polish" for one from Prussia.
- Year naturalized, new in 1920, dates the court record.
- Taken in January, so ages are as of January 1 — a person is a year older than a June count would make them.
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.
Questions
- Why does 1920 say Poland when 1910 said Russia?
- Poland did not exist as a state in 1910; by 1920 it did, and enumerators were told to use the new borders. The family did not move. Use the mother-tongue column and the 1910 province, if given, to pin the origin.
- What is the mother tongue column?
- The language spoken in the home before coming to the United States, asked of each foreign-born person and of each person's father and mother. It is the best clue on the page to a family's ethnic origin.
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.