Record columns
Reading the 1930 US census, column by column
1930 asks a few things no other census does: the value of the home or the monthly rent, whether the family owned a radio set, and each married person's age at first marriage — which, subtracted from the current age, dates a wedding. It also asks the war a veteran served in, in a short code. The hand is Palmer, usually in pencil or fountain pen.
- Date
- April 1, 1930
- Columns
- 30
- Handwriting
- Palmer method in pencil; faint but regular. Numbers (ages, values, rents) are the usual misreadings.
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 | Value of home or monthly rent | Dollar value if owned, monthly rent if rented. |
| 9 | Radio set | R if the household owned a radio in 1930. |
| 10 | Lives on farm | Yes or No. |
| 11 | Sex | M or F. |
| 12 | 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. |
| 13 | 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. |
| 14 | 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. |
| 15 | Age at first marriage | Age at first marriage, which lets you estimate the marriage year. |
| 16 | Attended school | A tick or the number of months if the person attended school in the past year. |
| 17 | Can read and write | Yes or No. |
| 18 | Birthplace | A state or a country, as the enumerator wrote it: "Ohio", "Ireland", "Prussia", "Bohemia". Pre-1900 abbreviations are frequent (Pa, O, Va, Ind). |
| 19 | Father's birthplace | State or country of the father; the same abbreviations as the birthplace column. |
| 20 | Mother's birthplace | State or country of the mother. |
| 21 | Mother tongue | The language of the home in childhood, not the country: "German" for a family from Russia, "Yiddish", "Polish". |
| 22 | Year of immigration | Year of arrival in the United States, as remembered — often a round number. |
| 23 | Naturalization | Na naturalized, Pa first papers filed, Al alien; 1930 adds Na, Pa, Al with a year elsewhere. |
| 24 | Speaks English | Yes or No; when No, 1910 and 1920 name the language spoken instead. |
| 25 | Occupation | As stated; "keeping house", "at home", "farm laborer", "none". Children "at school". A blank is a blank, not "none". |
| 26 | Industry | The kind of business, paired with the occupation: "salesman" / "dry goods store". |
| 27 | Class of worker | W wage worker, E employer, OA own account, NP unpaid family worker (1930: W, E, O, NP; 1950: P private, G government, O own business, NP). |
| 28 | At work | Yes or No on April 1, 1930; an unemployment schedule number may follow. |
| 29 | Veteran | Yes or No for military or naval service in a war. |
| 30 | War or expedition | WW World War, Sp Spanish-American, Civ Civil War, Phil Philippine, Box Boxer, Mex Mexican expedition. |
What to watch for on this form
- Age at first marriage: current age minus this is the number of years since the first wedding, whatever the present marriage.
- Veteran column: Yes/No, then the war: WW (World War), Sp (Spanish-American), Civ, Phil, Box, Mex.
- An R in the radio column; a value or a rent figure in dollars; O or R for owned or rented.
- Class of worker: W wage worker, E employer, O own account, NP unpaid family worker.
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
- How do I find a marriage date from the 1930 census?
- Subtract the age at first marriage from the age on census day: a 47-year-old married at 23 married about 1906. For a remarried person this dates the first marriage, not the present one.
- What does WW mean in the veteran column?
- World War, meaning the First World War. Sp is the Spanish-American War, Civ the Civil War, Phil the Philippine insurrection, Box the Boxer rebellion, Mex the 1916 Mexican expedition.
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.