The release of the 1940 census has been much anticipated in the genealogical community. I am no exception. In terms of exploring your ancestors' linguistic heritage this census offers some good news and some bad news.
The bad news
For most people listed in the census information about the birthplace of parents and the language of the individual is not given. However, some individuals are singled out for supplementary questions. These questions do ask about the mother tongue of the individual and their parents' birthplaces. Unfortunately, there are no questions about the mother tongue of parents as was the case in the 1920 census.
The good news
If you are lucky enough to have an ancestor who was singled out for the supplementary questions, you will not only get information about the mother tongue of foreign-born ancestors, but also of American-born ancestors. Language questions were asked in four different censuses before 1940. In 1890 and 1910 the mother language of the individual was only given if the person did not speak English. In 1920 and 1930 the question concerned only the foreign-born population, so if you spoke Cajun French or Pennsylvania Dutch this information was not recorded. The 1940 census will be particularly helpful with groups that maintained their languages in the United States.
People working on Native American ancestry should be particularly aware of this question, as it will be the first time where you will have a clear indication about whether a native language was spoken in the household.
For more information about language in earlier censuses, check out this post.
Showing posts with label Exploring your linguistic heritage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Exploring your linguistic heritage. Show all posts
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Exploring your linguistic heritage #3: U.S. Censuses
Not many records will directly address the question of what languages your ancestors spoke. One notable exception is census records. The U.S. censuses provide two relevant types of information.
Mother tongue
The first type of information is direct; censuses in some years provide explicit information about language. Both the 1920 and 1930 Censuses ask for the mother tongue or native language of foreign-born individuals, while the 1920 Census also asks for information about the mother tongue of foreign-born parents. Take my 2nd great grandmother Mary (Runiger) Kingsbury. She was born in Ohio, so her mother tongue is not listed in the 1920 Census, but her father was born in Switzerland and her mother was born in Germany, so their mother tongues are listed here as German.
The language spoken by an individual may also be listed in the 1910 and 1890 Censuses, but only if he or she does not speak English. My 2nd great grandfather, Paul Schoendorf, was born in Germany and spoke German, but also spoke English, so his mother tongue, German, is not listed in the 1910 Census.
In contrast, his mother tongue is listed as German in both 1920 and 1930.
1920:
1930:
Make sure that you know what is being asked. Read the column headings and the census instructions, which can be found on the Census Bureau website (here).
Place of Birth
The second type of information is more indirect. All censuses since 1850 have asked about the place of birth of individuals and every census from 1880 to 1930 lists the places of birth of both the father and mother of the individual. The place of birth can be an important clue to what languages your ancestors spoke. This is also a case where it is useful to check out the the census instructions. There are very specific instructions about how to list places of birth. For example, the 1910 instructions direct the enumerators not to list "Poland" but instead either "Germany (Pol.)", "Austria (Pol.)" or "Russia (Pol.)".
Keep in mind that there are limitations to using the census. First, not all enumerators followed the instructions very well. In some cases, this can be to your advantage; they may add more specific information than requested by the census. In other cases, this may mean incorrect information; they may have incorrectly assumed the language of individuals in the census or simply not understood the person being interviewed.
Second, information, especially about parents, may be incorrect. Your ancestors may not have known this information or may have had some reason to give false information. You may have an ancestor where the place of birth of a parent seems to change with every census. However, don't immediately assume that the information is false; there may be important clues even when the information is inaccurate or inconsistent. For example, for my 2nd great grandfather, Alfred Eugene Madison, his father's place of birth is listed as New Brunswick (C. Fr. [Canada French]) in 1900, Can. English in 1910, and Scotland in 1920. Of course, the last census is not compatible with the earlier ones, but maybe this indicates something about his ancestry.
Finally, the place of birth only tells us what languages our ancestor may or most likely would have spoken. No country is purely monolingual and there are always linguistic minorities. Remember that place of birth is only a clue, it's not direct evidence.
Mother tongue
The first type of information is direct; censuses in some years provide explicit information about language. Both the 1920 and 1930 Censuses ask for the mother tongue or native language of foreign-born individuals, while the 1920 Census also asks for information about the mother tongue of foreign-born parents. Take my 2nd great grandmother Mary (Runiger) Kingsbury. She was born in Ohio, so her mother tongue is not listed in the 1920 Census, but her father was born in Switzerland and her mother was born in Germany, so their mother tongues are listed here as German.
The language spoken by an individual may also be listed in the 1910 and 1890 Censuses, but only if he or she does not speak English. My 2nd great grandfather, Paul Schoendorf, was born in Germany and spoke German, but also spoke English, so his mother tongue, German, is not listed in the 1910 Census.
In contrast, his mother tongue is listed as German in both 1920 and 1930.
1920:
Make sure that you know what is being asked. Read the column headings and the census instructions, which can be found on the Census Bureau website (here).
Place of Birth
The second type of information is more indirect. All censuses since 1850 have asked about the place of birth of individuals and every census from 1880 to 1930 lists the places of birth of both the father and mother of the individual. The place of birth can be an important clue to what languages your ancestors spoke. This is also a case where it is useful to check out the the census instructions. There are very specific instructions about how to list places of birth. For example, the 1910 instructions direct the enumerators not to list "Poland" but instead either "Germany (Pol.)", "Austria (Pol.)" or "Russia (Pol.)".
Keep in mind that there are limitations to using the census. First, not all enumerators followed the instructions very well. In some cases, this can be to your advantage; they may add more specific information than requested by the census. In other cases, this may mean incorrect information; they may have incorrectly assumed the language of individuals in the census or simply not understood the person being interviewed.
Second, information, especially about parents, may be incorrect. Your ancestors may not have known this information or may have had some reason to give false information. You may have an ancestor where the place of birth of a parent seems to change with every census. However, don't immediately assume that the information is false; there may be important clues even when the information is inaccurate or inconsistent. For example, for my 2nd great grandfather, Alfred Eugene Madison, his father's place of birth is listed as New Brunswick (C. Fr. [Canada French]) in 1900, Can. English in 1910, and Scotland in 1920. Of course, the last census is not compatible with the earlier ones, but maybe this indicates something about his ancestry.
Finally, the place of birth only tells us what languages our ancestor may or most likely would have spoken. No country is purely monolingual and there are always linguistic minorities. Remember that place of birth is only a clue, it's not direct evidence.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Exploring your linguistic heritage #2: Embracing complexity
It is important when we think about our ancestors that we don't make too many assumptions based on our modern situation. Many Americans live in a very monolingual world. We speak and write almost exclusively in English and every thing that documents our time here is written in English.
However, this is a peculiarly modern situation. Before the 19th and 20th centuries, most people lived in large multilingual empires. In the British Isles today, Celtic languages like Gaelic, Cornish and Welsh have been relegated to often shrinking communities at the peripheries, but if you were to go back to Shakespeare's time you would find large areas where languages other than English dominated. For example, as late as the 1890's Scottish Gaelic was the majority language throughout the Scottish highlands.1
Be prepared for a degree of complexity that may be quite strange to us today. Many of our ancestors would have encountered many different languages in their lives. Records may have been produced in several different languages. It is very common for church and synagogue records in the same place to be in one language and government records to be in another. Throughout the world, Catholic church records were commonly kept in Latin. For my Schoendorf line in Saarland, I have church records in Latin and civil records in German and French. A single area may have changed hands, sometimes several times, and each time with a change in the language of administration. If your ancestors lived near a border, don't be surprised to find that the languages of the records changes from time to time.
To make things more complicated, your ancestors may not have even known the languages that these records where in. In some cases, they may have spoken a dialect very different from the standard form used in writing or they may have spoken a completely unrelated language. In other cases, your ancestors may have been comfortable in more than one language, switching from one to the other depending on the situation or need. The situation may even have changed across generations.
As always, be careful what you assume. Just because your ancestors were from France doesn't mean they spoke French. They may have spoken a language like Basque, Breton, German or Flemish. Conversely, just because they are from a region where one of these languages was spoken doesn't mean they didn't speak French. You have to weigh the available evidence carefully.
1. Kenneth MacKinnon. "Scottish Gaelic Today: Social History and Contemporary Status," in The Celtic Languages, ed. Martin J. Ball (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 491-535.
However, this is a peculiarly modern situation. Before the 19th and 20th centuries, most people lived in large multilingual empires. In the British Isles today, Celtic languages like Gaelic, Cornish and Welsh have been relegated to often shrinking communities at the peripheries, but if you were to go back to Shakespeare's time you would find large areas where languages other than English dominated. For example, as late as the 1890's Scottish Gaelic was the majority language throughout the Scottish highlands.1
Be prepared for a degree of complexity that may be quite strange to us today. Many of our ancestors would have encountered many different languages in their lives. Records may have been produced in several different languages. It is very common for church and synagogue records in the same place to be in one language and government records to be in another. Throughout the world, Catholic church records were commonly kept in Latin. For my Schoendorf line in Saarland, I have church records in Latin and civil records in German and French. A single area may have changed hands, sometimes several times, and each time with a change in the language of administration. If your ancestors lived near a border, don't be surprised to find that the languages of the records changes from time to time.
To make things more complicated, your ancestors may not have even known the languages that these records where in. In some cases, they may have spoken a dialect very different from the standard form used in writing or they may have spoken a completely unrelated language. In other cases, your ancestors may have been comfortable in more than one language, switching from one to the other depending on the situation or need. The situation may even have changed across generations.
As always, be careful what you assume. Just because your ancestors were from France doesn't mean they spoke French. They may have spoken a language like Basque, Breton, German or Flemish. Conversely, just because they are from a region where one of these languages was spoken doesn't mean they didn't speak French. You have to weigh the available evidence carefully.
1. Kenneth MacKinnon. "Scottish Gaelic Today: Social History and Contemporary Status," in The Celtic Languages, ed. Martin J. Ball (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 491-535.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Exploring your linguistic heritage #1
As you explore your family history, it is easy to get caught up in names and dates, but there is far more to your ancestors than just this. Learning something about the geography, history and culture of your ancestors can be helpful for your genealogical research and rewarding in itself. One of the best ways to get to know the culture of your ancestors is through the languages they spoke.
To help readers explore the linguistic heritage of their ancestors, I am starting a new series of posts entitled "Exploring your linguistic heritage". The aim of these posts is to give readers a foundation and new resources to help them come to a more complete understanding of the languages spoken by your ancestors. Language is not only a research tool, but can also be something you are researching.
First, ask yourself what you know about your own linguistic heritage. Did you or anyone else in your family grow up speaking another language? As with all family history, a great place to start is by interviewing your own family members. See what they know about the languages your ancestors spoke. Even if your parents or grandparents don't speak the language they might remember phrases heard around the house or the names of recipes that may offer important clues.
The next step is figuring out where your ancestors lived. You can start with their country of origin, but realize that this is a very imperfect tool for finding out the language they spoke. Almost every country has speakers of other languages. Just because your ancestors are from France does not mean their first language was French. Your ancestors may have spoken German, Flemish, Breton, Basque, Catalan or an immigrant language.
Even if they did speak the most common language in the country, your ancestors might have known it in a form very different from the one you may have learned in school. The differences between dialects can be very pronounced in many countries. If you're ancestors are from Sicily, the language they spoke was probably very different from Standard Italian, different enough that some linguists would consider what they spoke a separate language.
Once you have set the groundwork, you can start to explore this part of your heritage in depth. Please stay tuned for more posts.
To help readers explore the linguistic heritage of their ancestors, I am starting a new series of posts entitled "Exploring your linguistic heritage". The aim of these posts is to give readers a foundation and new resources to help them come to a more complete understanding of the languages spoken by your ancestors. Language is not only a research tool, but can also be something you are researching.
First, ask yourself what you know about your own linguistic heritage. Did you or anyone else in your family grow up speaking another language? As with all family history, a great place to start is by interviewing your own family members. See what they know about the languages your ancestors spoke. Even if your parents or grandparents don't speak the language they might remember phrases heard around the house or the names of recipes that may offer important clues.
The next step is figuring out where your ancestors lived. You can start with their country of origin, but realize that this is a very imperfect tool for finding out the language they spoke. Almost every country has speakers of other languages. Just because your ancestors are from France does not mean their first language was French. Your ancestors may have spoken German, Flemish, Breton, Basque, Catalan or an immigrant language.
Even if they did speak the most common language in the country, your ancestors might have known it in a form very different from the one you may have learned in school. The differences between dialects can be very pronounced in many countries. If you're ancestors are from Sicily, the language they spoke was probably very different from Standard Italian, different enough that some linguists would consider what they spoke a separate language.
Once you have set the groundwork, you can start to explore this part of your heritage in depth. Please stay tuned for more posts.
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