{"id":538,"date":"2010-03-21T09:45:38","date_gmt":"2010-03-21T14:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/?p=538"},"modified":"2017-06-27T08:37:58","modified_gmt":"2017-06-27T13:37:58","slug":"hey-honey-look-we-got-a-survey-in-the-mail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/?p=538","title":{"rendered":"hey honey, look! we got a survey in the mail"},"content":{"rendered":"

I started thinking about it last year.<\/p>\n

As the calendar rolled around to 2010, I started anticipating it.<\/p>\n

As news stories started popping up, trying to make something political of it, I started getting excited. It was almost time. <\/p>\n

And last week, it finally came . . . my very own questionnaire for the 2010 Census. Yessssssss. After ten long years of waiting.<\/p>\n

“You’re the only person I know who can get so excited over a census,” Steven said as I danced around with my envelope.<\/p>\n

Why so excited over a mandatory count? I really couldn’t care too much about how many representatives we get in Congress (Alabama’s hasn’t changed in years anyway) or how many funds get allocated to Chelsea. For me, it’s all about the genealogy.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the power of the intertubes, I’ve been able to see a lot of the census records of my ancestors, and it has been fascinating — not only for the information on the records themselves, but seeing the awesome proof that they truly walked the earth, farming and preaching and raising families.<\/p>\n

The earliest census record I have is that of Edward and Elsey Snellgrove, my sixth-great grandparents. They show up on the 1800 Census. Edward died two years later. Coincidentally, they are also Bill Clinton’s fifth-great grandparents.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The latest census records to be released are from the year 1930. I have the copies showing all four of my grandparents. My mother’s father was 14<\/a>; two years later the tornado was to come through Columbiana and take his house with it (today’s the anniversary of that, by the bye). My mother’s mother was 9<\/a> and in Calera. My dad’s father was 9<\/a>; he would turn 10 a few months later. My dad’s mom is 10<\/a>; maybe a year or two after this picture was taken:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Census records aren’t released until 72 years after the year of he census, so the first census I will show up in, 1990, won’t be forthcoming until 2072 — I’ll be 92 if I’m still around. I missed the 1980 census by 32 days.<\/p>\n

In part I find my own fulfillment of the census information so interesting because I hope my own grandkids and great-grandkids, perhaps even sixth-great grandkids, will one day pull up the information and think, “Wow, Granny Carrie was only 29 and Grandpa Sam wasn’t even born yet! She had to have known he was coming, though.” <\/p>\n

Ohh yeah, I know he’s coming. He likes to kick and remind me about every five seconds or so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I started thinking about it last year. As the calendar rolled around to 2010, I started anticipating it. As news stories started popping up, trying to make something political of it, I started getting excited. It was almost time. And last week, it finally came . . . my very own questionnaire for the 2010 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10,11,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2407,"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions\/2407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}