Contact: Maridith Geuder
Census data recently provided to MSU by Starkville residents E.O. and Betty Templeton (r) were accepted by reference librarian Lynne Mueller and associate provost George Rent.
A new donation to Mississippi State by a retired Starkville couple is significantly expanding the University Libraries' collection of state census information.
E.O. and Betty Templeton University Libraries are providing both the microfilm and index--also called a Soundex--of 1930 census records for Mississippi, which were released for the first time in April.
To ensure privacy of participating individuals, copies of the actual forms used by census takers are made public only after 72 years.
"Census records provide a snapshot of each household in the United States on a single day every 10 years," said special collections reference librarian Lynne Mueller. "Family historians find this a rich treasure of information about their ancestors," she added, noting that records from the Great Depression are especially compelling.
Heavily involved in genealogical research, the Templetons earlier provided Mitchell Memorial Library with state census and Soundex information for 1910 and 1920.
"This latest census gives information about how families were coping with hard economic times, indicating rents and real estate values as well as the jobs family members held if they worked on the day prior to the census," Mueller said.
Mueller said the records will enable family historians and others to identify their relatives or ancestors who were immigrants or military veterans, particularly of World War I. The latest records include 37 reels of census and 158 reels of indexing.
"The 1930 census also is interesting because it reflects an early stage of the 20th century's telecommunications revolution by noting whether households had a radio," Mueller observed.