Update on the number 3 and race

Thanks to the fine folks over at the Family Search indexing forums, I now know about the penciled-in codes in the race column, alluded to in my earlier post about Indians:

• Mex = 1 (along with White)
• Col or C = 2 (along with Neg)
• In = 3
• Chi = 4
• Jp or Jap = 5
• Fil = 6
• Hin = 7
• Kor = 8

(from PROCEDURAL HISTORY OF THE 1940 CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING, page 132 of PDF, http://usa.ipums.org/usa/resources/v...umproc1940.pdf)

It was for the coders who took the census returns and punched them into tabulating machines. (These were originally built by Tabulating Machines Company, later know as International Business Machines, or IBM, although the Census Bureau started building their own around 1905-1907.) The numbers were to help them distinguish between the less common "races" so you only sometimes see a 2, and I've not yet seen a 1.