What the Census doesn’t know

I drafted this musing on the 2010 Census, and my wanderings over the past decade, as a Facebook Note back in May, but never got around to actually publishing it. Now that I have a blog again, I figure I might as well go ahead and post it… with apologies to Michelle Bachmann, of course.

Something got me thinking recently about the upcoming Census, and how old Censuses (Censi?) are often used to track genealogical histories — for instance, what little we know about my ancestors’ history in this country, we have gleaned mostly from Census data. And, in this vein, it occurred to me what an incomplete picture of my life’s geographic journey a future genealogist would get from looking at the snapshots captured by the Census.

I was born in 1981, so my first Census was in 1990, at which point I was living in Newington, Connecticut. My next Census was in 2000, and I was counted in Los Angeles, California, where I was a freshman at USC. And now, come 2010, I’ll be counted in Denver, Colorado, where my wife — who wasn’t even my girlfriend yet at the last Census — and our (by then) two kids have settled down in our new house, with every intention of being here for a number of Censuses to come.

So, as far as the Census is concerned, I will have gone from being an 8-year-old in Connecticut living with his parents, to a single 18-year-old in California living with a roommate (the esteemed David K.), to a married 28-year-old in Colorado living with his wife and two kids. Seems pretty straightforward. Here it is on a map:

Of course, as anyone who knows me is well aware, that map leaves, er, a few things out. Like New York, Arizona, Indiana and Tennessee, for instance. 🙂 And that only scratches the surface. I’ve had a lot of “intra-Census” homes, if you will.

My actual geographic journey, in terms of places I’ve lived, has gone more like this (including college semesters in L.A. and summers back in Newington): Hartford –> Newington –> Los Angeles –> Newington –> Los Angeles –> Newington –> Los Angeles –> Newington –> Los Angeles –> Newington –> New York City –> Newington –> Mesa –> Notre Dame –> South Bend –> Glendale –> South Bend –> Knoxville –> South Denver –> North Denver.

Here’s the map version:

The places I’ve lived that don’t show up in any Census record are: Hartford, CT (where I was born, and lived from 1981-1986); three different addresses in Los Angeles, CA (only the one at Trojan Hall got counted); New York, NY; Mesa, AZ; Notre Dame, IN; South Bend, IN; Glendale, AZ; Knoxville, TN; and our first Colorado condo, in South Denver.

Man, I’ve moved a lot in the last decade, huh?

P.S. Becky’s map would be fairly similar, but with Amherst, NY instead of Hartford/Newington, CT as her starting point, and without the stops in New York, NY and Notre Dame, IN (she has South Bend, 46637, but not Notre Dame, 46556, where I lived my first semester 1L year) … and with a brief sojourn in London, England thrown in for good measure.