[or-roots] more census whining

[ilightle2 at hotmail.com]

Les-
My family seems to have some of the same monkey business going on too - like 
deciding one year to report GG Grandma's dad as Scottish rather than Irish, 
erasing any clues to having German origins even though the neighbors said 
the accent was so pronounced  in the oldest generation  that there was 
little doubt that their parents came across the Atlantic.

During the WW's it definitely wasn't fashionable to be to closely tied to 
the Fatherland by birth - sentiments may be stirred against the US. The 
Japanese were interred along those lines of thinking. We're not much better 
now either if you'll recall some of the reactions to people who looked like 
"Arabs" after 9-11.

I read an explanation that at times the enumerator couldn't catch people at 
home and would fill in whatever the neighbors could supply. The town wag 
could have a field day. All in all it's amazing just how much "Good" info 
can be gleaned from the data though. People I talk to about the upcoming 
census are overwhelming of the mind that it is a head count and nothing 
beyond that is anybodies business - don't fill in the blanks - the less 
'They' know the better off I am. And I thought the Genealogy thing had a 
widespread following...
Ingrid