The Censustaker
Yesterday evening, a woman came to my door and interviewed me as part of the preparatory work being done by the United States Census Bureau for the 2010 Federal Census.
Apparently, this town and some Indian reservation up north are the only two such test areas for the Bureau. Very interesting. I asked her if we had Tom DeLay or the President to thank for this attention, but she didn’t know.
I had received two packets from the Bureau in the past several weeks, but had essentially buried them in the litterbox of my office. I remembered reading that, if I didn’t repsond, they would come knocking. And they certainly did.
Being a lifelong amateur genealogist, I could not help but to think of my ancestors as I stood on my porch talking to this woman. I thought of my ancestresses and how they sometimes shaved a few years off their ages for the benefit of the men standing there in their doorways with their tablets in hand. But I didn’t indulge in any such vanity.
I did, however, very scrupulously describe to her my ethnic background. She was most impressed at how well I knew my tree —and dutifully took her stylus to the little blackberry-looking thing she had with her to record my various tribes: German, Prussian Pole, Lithuanian Jew, English, Scotch, Scotch-Irish, Irish, Dutch, Welsh, and “1/32nd American Indian.” I probably also have French and Portuguese, but didn’t bother to say.
Censustaking is such an old practice that it’s even mentioned in the Bible. I’m glad I got to add my link to the chain.
