Record columns
Reading the 1940 US census, column by column
1940 is the Depression census: it asks where everyone lived five years earlier, how far they got in school, whether they worked last week or were on public relief work, how many weeks they worked in 1939 and what they earned. A circled x after one name marks the person who answered the enumerator's questions. Two lines on every sheet carry extra sample questions about parents, mother tongue, veteran status and marriage.
- Date
- April 1, 1940
- Columns
- 30
- Handwriting
- Palmer method; the longest written entries are the 1935 residence and the occupation and industry columns, and those are where names of towns and trades are misread.
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 | Household no. | Running count of households in order of visitation. |
| 4 | Home owned or rented | O owned, R rented. |
| 5 | Value of home or monthly rent | Dollar value if owned, monthly rent if rented. |
| 6 | Lives on farm | Yes or No. |
| 7 | 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. |
| 8 | 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. |
| 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 | Attended school | A tick or the number of months if the person attended school in the past year. |
| 14 | Highest grade completed | Coded: 0 none, 1–8 elementary, H-1 to H-4 high school, C-1 to C-5 college. |
| 15 | Birthplace | A state or a country, as the enumerator wrote it: "Ohio", "Ireland", "Prussia", "Bohemia". Pre-1900 abbreviations are frequent (Pa, O, Va, Ind). |
| 16 | Citizenship | Na naturalized, Pa first papers, Al alien, AmCit born abroad of American parents (1940). |
| 17 | Residence in 1935: city | City or town on April 1, 1935; "Same house" or "Same place" if unmoved; R for rural. |
| 18 | Residence in 1935: county | County of residence in 1935. |
| 19 | Residence in 1935: state | State (or country) of residence in 1935. |
| 20 | On a farm in 1935 | Yes or No. |
| 21 | At work last week | Yes or No; 1940 and 1950 ask about the week before the census. |
| 22 | Public emergency work | Yes if on WPA, CCC or NYA work in the week of March 24–30, 1940. |
| 23 | Seeking work | Yes or No. |
| 24 | Hours worked | Hours worked in the week before the census. |
| 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 | Weeks worked in 1939 | Weeks worked in the previous calendar year. |
| 29 | Income in 1939 | Wages or salary in 1939, in dollars; 5000+ was the top code. |
| 30 | Other income | Yes or No: $50 or more from a source other than wages. |
What to watch for on this form
- Residence in 1935: "Same house", "Same place" (same town), or city, county and state; R marks a rural place.
- Highest grade: 0, 1–8, H-1 to H-4, C-1 to C-5.
- The circled x marks the informant — the person whose memory the household's answers depend on.
- Lines 14 and 29 on each sheet are sample lines with extra questions at the foot of the page: parents' birthplaces, mother tongue, veteran status, Social Security, number of marriages, age at first marriage, children born.
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
- What does the circled x mean in the 1940 census?
- That this person gave the household's answers to the enumerator. Ages and birthplaces for the rest of the household are as this person remembered them.
- Why does my ancestor have extra information in 1940?
- They fell on one of the two sample lines (14 or 29) on the sheet, and the enumerator asked the supplementary questions printed at the bottom of the page: parents' birthplaces, mother tongue, veteran status, marriages and children.
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.