Family History Tips--Part 43

Exploring other Cryptic Markings in U.S. Census Records—Indian Codes 

by Brenna Corbit, Technical Services Librarian

For the last few months we looked at various codes on the U.S. Census records that pertained to occupations, languages, and nativities. Today, I would like to venture into a territory very little known to me—American Indian genealogy. Except for a student who I helped with his Afro-Indian genealogy in Long Island, New York, and who turned out to be descended from a 19th century chief, I have no other experience.

Looking at American Indians in U.S. Censuses is not much different than any other ethnic research in terms of civil records, but it does have its own peculiarities. I will use the examples of the Lone Elk family of Corson County, South Dakota (Image A), and the Spotted Crow family of Caddo County, Oklahoma (Image B) to illustrate a few differences and the use of number codes. 

According to the 1930 Instructions to Enumerators, it was assumed that the parentage of American Indians was the United States. Thus, column 19 is used to determine the person’s “degree of Indian blood, as ‘full blood’ or ‘mixed blood,’” and column 20 determined the “tribe to which the Indian belongs” (174.a, p. 29), rather than listing parental nativity. Thus, in the Lone Elk family (Image A), column 19 lists each individual as “full blood,” and column 20 lists their tribal affiliation as “Sioux.” But in the Spotted Crow family, we see some confusion on the enumerator’s part in not following the instruction booklet. 

In Image B of the Spotted Crow family, columns 19 and 20 are being used for parental nativity and the blood and tribe of the individual. Thus, Thomas, the head of the family, is born in South Dakota, as well as his parents. But in column 20 “Sioux” is squeezed in above his mother’s state of nativity, which is Thomas’ tribal affiliation. The enumerator followed suit with the rest of the Indians in his designated area.

Let us now examine those numbers codes. Last time we were looking at the codes in columns A-C to determine nativity and language, but for American Indians only column A is used. Thus,
the Lone Elk family is #68 (South Dakota), except for the mother who is listed as #88 (Montana). Thomas Spotted Crow is listed as #68 (South Dakota) and the rest of his family is #86 (Oklahoma). I introduced you to these codes last time when we looked at Morse’s “Deciphering Language & Nativity Codes Appended to 1930 Census in One Step.” https://stevemorse.org/census/abc.html

Turning to the numbers referring only to American Indians becomes a bit tricky. In the Lone Elk, and Spotted Crow families we see the numbers from column A repeated in the column 18, the nativity of the individual. And in column 19 we see another number. In the case of John Lone Elk, the number 74-5 translates to “Brule Sioux” according to Morse’s “Deciphering Indian Codes Appended to 1930 Census in One Step”(Image C). https://stevemorse.org/census/indians.html Likewise Thomas Spotted Crow is listed as 74-6 (Brule Sioux), and the rest of his family is 16-6 (Chiricahua Apache). Interestingly, the enumerator, yes the one not following instructions, repeats these numbers is column 21.


I have yet to determine the meaning of the appended hyphenated numbers in 74-6, 16-6, and 74-5. Stephen Morse explains that the hyphenated number determines “blood,” code 4 for mixed and code 5 for full blood. Thus, 74-5 would agree that the Lone Elk family is “full blood,” but what does the 6 mean for the Spotted Crow family? If the enumerator wasn’t following the directions to a T, perhaps he also erred on the hyphenated numbers. Needless to say, John W. Radley, the enumerator for that region, was probably not recalled to enumerate the 1940 U.S. Census!

Next time, we will look at one more set of numbers codes, but in a source other than census records—Pennsylvania Death Certificates.