Census Sunday - Charles B. Sharpp household, 1930 U.S. Census, Taney Co., Mo.

Charles B. and Bertie Sharpp were enumerated in the 1930 U.S. census on 26 April 1930.^[1] They were living in Swan Township, Taney County, Missouri, on a farm. Here, is an extract of their census data from lines 24 and 25...

Sheet/Page	8-A/251-A
Line	24	25
1.Street, Avenue, Road, etc.	All on Highway 78
2.House number
3.Dwelling	182
4.Family	182
5.Name of each person whose place of abode on April 1, 1930, was in this family.	Sharpp, Charles B	-------, Bertie
6.Relationship of this person to the head of the family	Head	Wife
7.Home owned or rented	O
8.Value of home, if owned, or monthly rental, if rented
9.Radio set
10.Does this family live on a farm?	yes	X
11.Sex	M	F
12.Color Or Race	W	W
13.Age at last birthday	74	58
14.Marital condition	M	M
15.Age at first marriage	38	24
16.Attended school or college any time since September 1, 1929	no	no
17.Whether able to read and write	yes	yes
18.Person: Place of birth	Mississippi	Missouri
19.Father: Place of birth	Ohio	Missouri
20.Mother: Place of birth	Kentucky	Virginia
21.Mother Tongue of Foreign Born
A.Native Language or State of Birth	83	66
B.Country of Birth
C.Birth Type
22.Citizenship: Year of immigration to the United States.
23.Citizenship: Naturalization.
24.Whether able to speak English.	yes	yes
25.Occupation: Trade, profession, or particular kind of work done	Lawyer	None
26.Occupation: Industry, business, or establishment in which at work	Professional
D.Occupation Code	5X94
27.Class of worker.	W [wage or salary worker]
28.Employment: Whether actually at work yesterday, Yes/No	yes
29.Employment: If not at work, line number on unemployment schedule.
30.Whether a veteran of U.S. military or naval forces (Yes/No)	no
31.If a veteran, what war or expedition?
32.Number of farm schedule	151

Commentary:

The 1910^[2] and 1920^[3] censuses had reported Charles and Bertie living in the village of Forsyth. By 1930, they had moved away from town to a farm on "highway 78," but still in Swan Township.

Columns A, B, C, and D require some explanation. These columns were not filled in by the enumerator but were appended later when the returns were processed by the Census Bureau. Stephen Morse has created web pages where these codes can be deciphered.^[4][5] Using his lookup service, the values for Charles and Bertie are interpreted in the following table:

	Charles	-Deciphered	Bertie	-Deciphered
A.State of Birth	83	Mississippi	66	Missouri
B.Country of Birth	blank	father native mother native	blank	father native mother native
C.Birth Type	blank	father native mother native	blank	father native mother native
D.Occupation Code	5X94	Lawyers, judges, and justices; Industry: College or university	blank	no occupation

Columns 25 and 26, tell us Charles is employed as a lawyer in the "Professional" industry. Column D provides additional insight into Charles's occupation at age 74. It suggests he is teaching law at a nearby college or university.

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1. 1930 U.S. census, Taney County, Missouri, population schedule, Swan Township, enumeration district (ED) 107-14, p. 251-A (stamped), sheet 8-A (penned), dwelling 182, family 182, Charles B. Sharpp household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 August 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 1249. ^↩
2. 1910 U.S. census, Taney County, Missouri, population schedule, Forsyth Village, Swan Township (part of), enumeration district (ED) 208, p. 83-B (preceding page stamped), sheet 1-B, dwelling 16, family 16, Charles B. Sharp household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 August 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 827. [See Census Sunday - Charles B. Sharp household, 1910 U.S. Census, Taney Co., Mo.] ^↩
3. 1920 U.S. census, Taney County, Missouri, population schedule, Forsyth Village, Swan Township, enumeration district (ED) 237, p. 263-A (stamped), sheet 1-A (penned), dwelling 11, family 11, Charles B. Sharp household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 August 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 964. [See Census Sunday - Charles B. Sharp household, 1920 U.S. Census, Taney Co., Mo.] ^↩
4. Stephen P. Morse, Joel D. Weintraub, and David R. Kehs, "Deciphering Language & Nativity Codes Appended to 1930 Census in One Step," article, One-Step Webpages (http://www.stevemorse.org/census/abc.html : accessed 29 August 2015). ^↩
5. Stephen P. Morse, Joel D. Weintraub, and David R. Kehs, "Deciphering Occupation Codes Appended to the 1930 Census in One Step," article, One-Step Webpages (http://www.stevemorse.org/census/ocodes.htm : accessed 29 August 2015), Group1 lookup of '5X' and '94.' ^↩