 Welcome to the National Archives and Records Administration's 2022 Genealogy Series. We are pleased to present this educational series of lectures on how to conduct family research using the 1950 Census. My name is Andrea Matney, and as the program's coordinator, please allow me to do a quick introduction and provide instructions on how to participate. These lectures will demonstrate how to use records from the 1950 Census and other federal resources for genealogical research. Our presenters include experts from the National Archives and Records Administration and the U.S. Census Bureau. Sessions are intended for beginners to experienced family historians. All are welcome. We invite you to join the conversation. Please participate with the presenters and other family historians during each session's premiere. You can ask questions via chat by first logging into YouTube. Keep your eye on the chat during the broadcast because the speaker will answer your questions there in the chat. Type your questions in at any time, but please keep your questions on today's topic. In addition, find live captioning, handouts, and the events evaluation form under the video box by clicking on Show More. Note on our schedule that all sessions are broadcast on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. Eastern, and yes, all of the recorded videos will remain available for viewing later and at any time. Today's presentation is historic Census Bureau sources for Filipino, Guamanian and Chamorro, American Samoan, and Native Hawaiian research. I'm so pleased to introduce our presenter today, Christopher Martin. Mr. Martin is a historian with the U.S. Census Bureau responsible for the history of the American Community Survey, the history of the 2020 Census, and the Alumni Biography Program. He has previously worked with documents compass at the University of Virginia on the people of the founding era digital database, on the database of Mount Vernon's enslaved community at George Washington's Mount Vernon, and as an interpreter at James Madison's Montpelier. So pleased to have you here today, Mr. Martin. Thank you so much. I'm turning the broadcast over to you. Thank you very much. It's an honor to be here today as well. The Census Bureau has a proud history of over 100 years of counting Asians and Pacific Islanders, including Filipinos, Guamanians and Chamorros, American Samoans, and Native Hawaiians. The resources created over this time are a valuable source of genealogical, cultural, and targeted individual or group research. One quick note, some of the terms used in historic census reports and forms are outdated or offensive. However, we feel it is disingenuous and impractical to omit these terms when quoting or referencing census resources in a historic context, especially as the Census Bureau has endeavored to evolve in order to reflect diverse groups as they form and change identities throughout American history. Despite using these terms, the views expressed then still have the power to convey negative meanings now. So we ask that you consider the historical context under which this information was compiled, analyzed, and published. The Census Bureau values your privacy and will never release your personal information. However, the National Archives may release this information to the public after 72 years. Please understand that when discussing historical material, the sources must be viewed through the context of the times in which the information was collected and produced. The Census has been part of the United States since the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. It is one of the foundations of the United States government, which depends on the Census to allocate voting power and resources evenly based on population. Several changes have been made since 1789. The three-fifths clause for all other persons, meaning enslaved persons, was overturned by the 14th Amendment. The 1929 Reimortionment Act set the limit of the House of Representatives at 435, which eliminated the population totals required for each house seat and led to the introduction of the Huntington Hill apportionment method in 1941. American Indians not taxed, meaning those who lived on reservations or in tribal relations outside of white and black settlements would be nullified by decision of the Attorney General just prior to the 1940 Census. As the AG decided, supported by President Roosevelt, that at this point all American Indians and Alaskan natives in some way fell under US jurisdiction. Although outside the scope of many of the records we will be looking at today, only the head of households name was recorded until 1850. As I mentioned in the previous slide, this does not apply to enslaved persons who were excluded until 1870, and those considered Indians not taxed until 1940. Additionally, depending on where you lived, as was the case for most of the areas we will discuss today, an enumerator came to each household and filled out the form based on their interpretation and observation, meaning some things like race, spellings of names and non-traditional occupations did not get recorded accurately, but according to the enumerators interpretation. In some cases, such as with life dates, it is the respondent that frequently misstates important dates. Even now newborn babies are commonly forgotten to be included by the head of household when filling out census forms. Several of these difficulties are amplified in Pacific Island communities. For example, languages were far more diverse and more difficult for enumerators to record on their forms as directed, and even harder to represent the statistics of the final reports. Additionally, the census relied on Western measurements of years and times, which could lead to confusion about dates and life dates for some respondents. In 1970, the term Hawaiian appeared on every stateside questionnaire, except for Alaska. Hawaiians remained the only Pacific Islander group listed separately until 1980, when the terms Guamanian and Samoan were included with Hawaiian on all census questionnaires. In 1990, a response category for other Asian or Pacific Islanders was also included with the right in area for specific groups. And finally, as I mentioned before, the final reports and even the schedules themselves reflect the politics and environment of the time and the statistics and quality of the reports improved greatly as our nation progressed. American expansions at the end of the 19th century led to new territories with the annexation of Hawaii in 1898. The Spanish-American War from 1898 to 1899, which led to the possession of the Philippines and Guam, and the 1899 tripartite convention, which led to the annexation of American Samoa. In order to better govern these new territories, one of the first administrative tasks conducted by the U.S. was almost always a census. From the Spanish-American War to the end of World War II, the Philippines fell under the governance of the United States. In 1902, the United States passed the Philippine Organic Act, which decreed the Philippines would be governed, in part, by a representational Philippine Assembly. This, of course, required a census of the population. The Organic Act stipulated that the census would not be conducted until a cessation of hostilities and that the assembly could only be formed if peace lasted for two years after the completion of the census. Accordingly, the census of the Philippine Islands, taken in 1903, had major implications for the governance of the islands. This importance, coupled with widespread illiteracy and mistrust of the American government among the populace, led the Census Bureau to assign provincial governors as the district supervisors of the census. One of these governors was Epifiano de los Santos. From an early age, Epifiano excelled at almost everything he touched, and most people assumed he would become a musician since he showed marked talent in that area. Indeed, after graduating summa cum laude, his university offered him a professorship in music. However, he also excelled at writing, both fiction and history, art and law, and he decided to pursue the latter. He received his law degree from the University of Santo Thomas and passed the bar in 1898. Around this time, he began to get involved with revolutionary activities promoting independence from Spain. He wrote in the aptly named La Independencia under a pen name and participated in the Malalos Congress, the first constituent assembly assembled under the first Philippine Republic. He received an appointment as district attorney of Nueve Ejica, and in 1902, he was elected as governor of the province. In December of 1902, Epifanio spent two weeks in Manila going over the district maps and learning how to conduct the census. In mid-January, all of the governor's supervisors were in charge of collecting their materials in Manila, packing them by hand, and then distributing them to their enumerators and special agents who passed on their training to the local presidentes or mayors. On March 2, 1903, the Philippine census began, and Epifanio successfully spearheaded the count of 134,147 people, as well as the manufacturers and agriculture of his province. In 1918, at the next census of the Philippines and the first one conducted almost entirely by Filipinos, Epifanio was the assistant technical director of the census in charge of technical aspects and editing. Due to his previous experience and his ability to master almost any task, he was crucial throughout the 1918 census process and received special recognition from the director for his competence and enthusiasm. Throughout his lifetime of public service, Epifanio always seemed more interested in researching Filipino history and collecting Filipino literature, music, manuscripts, and art. So impressive was his library and collection that, upon his death, the Filipino government purchased it from his widow. Epifanio passed away in 1928 after a lifetime of giving voice and governance to the Filipino people and nation. The Philippine government honored him with the state funeral and later named the main road through Manila, as well as several schools, a hospital, and an auditorium, and tribute to the man who did so much to preserve Philippine culture. Another supervisor and influential Filipino who took the 1903 census was Marcelino Menya-Crisalogo, born in 1844. He spent his early life as a lawyer and a revolutionary against Spain. He also attended the Malalos Congress in 1898. After the overthrow of the Spanish government, he served as governor of the Aloco Sur province. Following the 1903 census, he resigned as governor in 1904 and devoted his services to the recognition of Ilocano and Filipino art and culture. His first act took him to the United States where he participated in the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Even though he traveled to St. Louis in his capacity as a Filipino politician, he entered his artwork in several categories where he earned an honorable mention in photography and a gold medal for a piece of wood furniture. Some of his notable works include the first Ilocano translation of the classic Spanish novel Don Quixote, several plays, and a celebrated novel. One final notable act is that the 1903 census of the Philippines was one of the first opportunities for female employment following the more traditional Spanish government and more than 40 women worked as enumerators and clerics. The Census Bureau only helped enumerate and compile the final reports for 1903 and 1918, which are available at census.gov and in many libraries. However, unfortunately, no schedules from those censuses are available. Starting in 1910, the Census Bureau included Filipinos or variations thereof like Philippine Islander as a separate race category. However, the option was not included as a race identifier or coding option on census questionnaires until 1930. This means you can sort searches of census schedules from 1930, 1940, and 1950 by those who identified or in some cases were identified as Filipino. Through 1970, statistics on Filipino Americans vary on depth of analysis. For example, census data on the Filipino population in 1950 were not published in general census volumes, but were limited to a subject report on population characteristics that showed the Filipino population for the United States, the four regions, and states with Filipino populations of 2,500 or more, which were California, Washington, New York. Starting in 1970, specific reports on Asian and Pacific Islander populations with significant focus on Filipinos have been part of each decennial report. Guam first fell under U.S. jurisdiction in 1898 following the Spanish-American War. Between 1710 and 1897, the Spanish conducted approximately 20 censuses of Guam. The second naval governor of Guam conducted a census in 1901. However, the results were merely aggregate population numbers divided by gender and race. In 1920, the Census Bureau administered the first official U.S. census on Guam and in search of enumerators that were both competent and connected to the people, Census Bureau leadership chose local teachers for all five positions. Manuel Charforos, a resident of Mariso, who excelled at school and began teaching at a young age, was one of these teacher enumerators for the first census in 1930 and later on for the 1940 census as well. He was elected to the commissioner's Congress of Guam in 1934 and again in 1941. This only lasted a short time, however, since as a possession of the United States, Guam would become a prime target for war in the Pacific. On December 8, 1941, just two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the forces of Imperial Japan invaded and captured Guam at the beginning of World War II. Unfortunately, in 1944, under the occupation of the Imperial Japanese Army, Manuel was identified as loyal to the Americans and under the guise of a work detail was taken with his oldest son, a U.S. Navy steward's mate to a cave to be executed. The soldiers used grenades and anyone still moving was van-edited. Manuel survived with substantial wounds while his son perished. Soon after, as the Americans began shelling the island before landing, three Boy Scouts from the troop of which Manuel was leader took their canoe to the USS Indianapolis to provide firing instructions to avoid the place where those from their village were sheltering. Another longtime educator, Agüita I. Johnston, served as a numerator in 1940, the first Chamorro woman to do so. Agüita began teaching in 1908 and became a principal in 1925. Her husband, William G. Johnston, originally came to Guam as a Marine and stayed on at the Department of Public Works after his marriage, in addition to starting several family businesses. During the occupation of Guam, Agüita's husband William was taken to a prisoner of war camp in Kobe, Japan, where he died in 1943. The Japanese military rule over the people of Guam was cruel and oppressive as the Imperial Army viewed the Guamanian population as loyal to the Americans. Agüita was allowed to continue teaching, although the original buildings were commandeered as barracks and she was forced to include Japanese language and culture classes in the curriculum. Although she catered to the Japanese troops through her curriculum and businesses, Agüita also secretly ran a resistance movement. Taking full control of the family business after the loss of her husband, she continued to illegally accept US dollars in order to keep faith in the return of American troops, and her family encoded hidden messages on the labels of the soap they made and distributed which shared news of Japanese defeat gained by illegal radios. All of these acts could have led to serious punishment or execution, but her most daring acts lay in her role in hiding and supplying US Navy Lieutenant George Ray Tweed, who was the only US service member to survive the entire occupation of Guam. Despite being suspected, imprisoned, and beaten, Agüita refused to divulge any information and at one point even talked Tweed out of surrendering, not just for himself, but for the symbolic importance of resistance he represented to the people of Guam. When the Americans retook Guam, landing on July 21, 1944, Agüita immediately began providing refreshment and entertainment for the troops, hundreds of which later met and hosted her on several victory, reunion, and educational tours she took to the US throughout the rest of the 1940s and early 1950s. Following the war, she continued her service to Guam as an educator and advocated for Guam's self-governance as opposed to the rule of an American naval governor. This goal was realized with passing of the Guam Organic Act of 1950, which provided for elections and self-governance of the island while still remaining a US territory. Agüita also was a founding member of a major contributor to the Guamanian chapters of the Red Cross, Girl Scouts, Women's Club, Association of Retired Persons, and the Fine Arts and Historical Society. In 1932, when the Guam Museum was established, she took control of the archives and collections and remained devoted to the preservation and education of Chamorro culture throughout her whole life. As tribute to her decades of service, a school was named after Agüita in 1974, today known as the Agüita I. Johnston Middle School, and she was elected to the Guam Educators Hall of Fame in 1982 alongside Manuel. Both schedules and final reports start in 1920 for Guam and are both initially more limited than stateside resources. The schedules asked questions about address or place of abode, name, relation to head of house, race, sex, marital status, education, ability to speak English, place of birth, including parents in 1920 only, and occupation. Limited agricultural questions related specifically to Guam were added in 1930, mainly copeproduction or coconut meal and limited livestock, tarot, sweet potato, and other food and tree crops. One interesting note relating to 1950 is that even though the Navy officially transferred governance of the island to the Department of the Interior in August, Carlton Skinner, the first civilian governor, was still in place and in charge in time to run the census on April 1, which was Census Day. Due to the large military presence and recent conflict, the Guam population schedule asked about veteran status of 100% of the population as opposed to a sample in the stateside schedule. Additionally, due to the almost complete destruction of civilian villages and infrastructure during World War II, the division of municipalities into barrios left over from the Spanish government was abandoned, marking a break in small area data comparability between 1950 and earlier censuses. Although some decennial statistics exist for Guam since 1920, Guamanian wasn't included separately from native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders in stateside statistics on race until 1980. The term Chamorro was used for reports on the territory of Guam from 1920 and was included in stateside statistics as a racial identification as opposed to just the language in 1990. Western exploration in the 19th century had influenced the local relations and dynamics of Samoans leading to both international strife and civil war in the late 1800s. In order to resolve this, the UK, Germany, and the United States convened the tripartite convention in 1899, which divided the islands into two parts. The United States annexed the eastern islands, including Tutila, Anu'u'u, and the Rosatou in 1900, with the Manua Islands joining in 1904 and Swains Island in 1925. The new territory was called American Samoa to distinguish it from the western islands, simply known as Samoa. The islands fell under the governance of a US naval governor, with Samoans chiefs and Matei, or heads of households, deciding local matters. Although there was friction between the new government and the Samoans, the naval governors also greatly aided the islands. During the 1918 influenza pandemic, Governor John Martin Poyer immediately instituted a strict quarantine, making American Samoa one of only three places in the world that did not suffer from the disease. On neighboring Samoan islands, under the direction of New Zealand, there was no quarantine and over 7,500 Samoans died from the disease, more than 20% of the population. In 1920, following annexation in the chaos of World War I, American Samoa had its first census taken under the auspices of the US Census Bureau. The 1920 census included village counts, as well as classifications of sex, race, age, and marital condition, data on school attendance, literacy, and occupations. A census of agriculture, a normal part of the decennial census at that time, also counted livestock and cobra or coconut meal production, and the naval governor appointed two enumerators with one interpreter each to collect the data. Jerry Scanlon, a storekeeper, taxi driver, and bookkeeper for the government supply depot, was one of the interpreters for William Barrow, a US government court clerk. Jerry had an American father and his stepmother, Pippi Amale-Ale-Ale Milapola, was the daughter of a prominent chief from the island of Savaii, which made him the perfect go-between for the first census. Similar to Guam, final reports and individual census records start in 1920. The 1920 census included village counts, as well as classifications of sex, race, age, and marital condition, data on school attendance, literacy, and occupations. A census of agriculture, a normal part of the decennial census at this time, also counted livestock and cobra production, America Samoa actually had a law that required landowners with enough available land to plant 30 new coconut trees a year. In 1940, the questionnaire also included questions on place of birth and ability to speak English. Compared to both Hawaii and Guam, the 1950 schedule for American Samoa is significantly shorter with no war-related questions and fewer demographic, educational, and work-related questions as well. Statistics exist for American Samoa since 1920. Samoan wasn't included separately from Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders in stateside statistics on race until 1980. After Hawaii became a U.S. territory in 1898, the Census Bureau first enumerated the islands during the 1900 census. However, communication difficulties, 56.6% of the population over the age of 10 did not speak English, exacerbated by a plague outbreak, significantly delayed the counting. Additionally, because previous governments had used censuses for taxation, there was a deep cultural bias against enumerators, which often erupted into violence. The Census Bureau recognized that it had to do a better job of reaching the Hawaiian people and educating them on the importance of participation ahead of the 1910 census. To this end, a group of locals who represented the many languages spoken on Hawaii assembled under Dr. Victor Clark, the special agent in charge of the census. The group created lessons in various languages to disseminate at schools and other public areas in order to familiarize the people with the population, agriculture, and manufacturing schedules. David Kaonohi Akalabre served as the translator and outreach specialist for Native Hawaiians in the 1910 census. He was born on March 5th, 1889 in Honolulu, Hawaii. His mother, who died six months after he was born, was descended from the great Hawaiian kahunas, which are shamans or experts, like Halawa'i, who served King Kamehameha the Great, and Pau Awa, a Tahitian priest who was hugely influential in 13th century Hawaii. David's father, a missionary, was the son of a Hindu-English seaman and a Hawaiian woman. With the passing of his mother, David was adopted by his aunt, also a kahuna, who sent him to the Kamehameha School for Boys, where he graduated in 1909. Following David's work in 1910 as a translator and special agent of the census, he moved on to work for the Lighthouse Bureau traveling across the island, turning wicks. In 1919, he and his family started a hula troupe with the goal of reviving the traditional dance that had almost died out under the disapproving influence of 19th century missionaries. David and his wife, Lydia, also taught classes on Hawaiian culture, legends, language, and songs to locals, and began using these to entertain visitors. By the 1930s, they were organizing major festivals in order to showcase Hawaiian entertainers. Now considered one of the premier kahunas on Hawaiian culture, David eventually wrote a book, The Kahuna Religion of Hawaii. In 1955, he became the guide to the throne room of the Royal Palace, an appointment he received directly from the governor. In 1959, the Territorial House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring David for his work as a kahuna and for his and his family's revitalization and preservation of the ancient art of hula. Hawaii has the most robust reports, similar to stateside resources. However, there were more specific agricultural and racial questions. Specific to 1950, Hawaii had a question about residents on August 14, 1945, marking the capitulation of Japan and referred to on the form as PJ Day. This question was in order to measure migration within the islands due to disruption from war activities. The full population and housing questionnaires were used in 1960 after admission to the union as the 50th state in order to have more comparable data. However, most previous questionnaires had closely followed that of the stateside. It was exactly the same in 1920 and 1930, and only questions on previous residents were removed in 1940. In 1970, the term Hawaiian was included as a coding option for all stateside questionnaires, and the Census Bureau began using the term native Hawaiian in 2000. In addition to territorial and stateside final reports for decennial censuses, the Census Bureau published reports focusing on Pacific Islanders and specific populations like Filipino, Chamorro or Guamanian, American Samoan and Native Hawaiian. As the Census Bureau adopted new data collection techniques to replace the long form questionnaire, every 10 years with smaller samples taken every year, which is called the American Community Survey, reports on specific populations can now be issued more frequently with more timely data, starting with data from the year 2004. To access final decennial reports, visit www.census.gov. All other reports and publications like ACS and Pacific Islander reports can be found at www.census.gov. Individual schedules for the 1940 decennial census are available at the National Archives website, 1940census.archives.gov. However, you can only search by location and not by name. With the recent release of the 1950 decennial census schedules, records for that year are available at www.archives.gov. And in addition to location, they are also searchable to a large degree by name. For more information on searching these records, please see some of the previous webinars in this series. Online sites like ancestry.com, familysearch.org, genealogy.com or myheritage.com have supplanted searching through rows of names on microfilm to find individual decennial census records. For those who don't want to or are unable to buy a subscription to one of these sites, many public libraries provide access to these services free of charge. Contact your local library to inquire if it is subscribed to one of these services. These records will exist for Hawaii starting in 1900, America Samoa and Guam in 1920 and with a code for Filipinos in the race category across the entire United States starting in 1930. In earlier censuses where racial coding does not yet exist, you can always search by birthplace and in some cases, birthplace of mother and father. If you want to research by the old school method, please visit NARA's website, which has information on using microfilm roles of census schedules and the sound index indexing system, which has been essentially rendered obsolete by the methods I mentioned earlier, making them harder to find at libraries and repositories. Thank you for joining me today. If you would like to learn more about census history, please visit www.census.gov. For all of the Census Bureau's publications, you can visit census.gov slash library slash publications.html or if you're interested in current census statistics, please visit data.census.gov. Now we will continue to take your questions, but my contact information is here and if you have any additional questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you very much to the National Archives. Thank you for joining us for today's presentation. We are wrapping up the lecture portion of the broadcast, but we'll continue to take your questions about today's topic in the chat section. Please take a minute to complete our short evaluation form so we can plan future programs based on your feedback. Find the link to it under Show More. If we did not get to your question today, please send us an email. Note that the presentation's video recording and handout will remain available on this YouTube page and our website. If you enjoyed this video, check out our Know Your Records program. We have many more educational videos on how to do research with us. Thank you to the Genealogy Series team who contributed to the success of this program. We are grateful for your work. Again, please stay if you have questions, although we are concluding the video portion of the broadcast. We will continue to take your questions in chat for another 10 minutes.