In April 2042, just seventeen short years form now, I’ll appear in the available United States Federal Census records for the very first time. That year will mark the release of the 19th Decennial Census of the United States, covering the year 1970. I was five years old then, living with my parents and little sister in a quaint, Mayberry-like suburb of Los Angeles called Temple City. My late mother was then just 24 years old; my father only 29. Ten years later, at age 15, the 1980 census will find me still in Temple City, but by then our family had moved to a larger home in order to accommodate the arrivals of another sister and my little brother.
The 1980s were some of the best years of my life. In 1983, I graduated high school and left for college, heading as far north as possible without actually leaving California. How I loved hiking the trails of the Redwood Forest, backpacking in the Trinity Alps, and meditating on the shores of the Pacific Coast as the sun set on the horizon. Those years were formative for me—a time of discovery, growth, and independence. But none of that will show up in census records.
I had once seriously contemplated becoming a forest ranger, until health issues got in the way. As the decade came to an end, I landed an amazing job back in Los Angeles and I temporarily moved back home while I adjusted to the transition. And that’s what the 1990 census will show: “Still living at home with Mom and Dad.”
In the years that followed, I started a business, purchased a home, and built a family. The 1990s were prosperous years, but they were also tumultuous. In 1992, I witnessed the Rodney King riots—tanks rolling down my suburban street and soldiers with military rifles standing guard at the corner market. In 1994, I huddled on my bathroom floor as the Northridge Earthquake nearly destroyed my home. In 1997, I suffered my first heart attack and learned that my kidney disease had come out of a seven-year remission. By the end of the ’90s, I was burned out, so it seemed fitting that the world would be soon be ending with Y2K.
Of course, the world didn’t end—and neither did my struggles. In 2000, on the verge of losing my mind, I moved back home temporarily to regroup. But the 2000 census won’t reveal that. It will simply say, “Still living at home with Mom.”
Surprisingly, the 2000s turned out to be a good decade. I resolved the conflicts at work, found a sense of calm at home, and expanded my business threefold. By the decade’s end, my boys were grown, and I became a first-time grandpa. But my health still weighed on me, and I was tired. My mother had moved to Texas to be closer to family, and by the close of the decade, I was ready to join her. So, I sold my business, pocketed the cash, and relocated to Dallas. Yet once again, the census will fail to capture the entire story. It will only say, “Moved to Texas—still lives with Mom.”
One hundred years from now, future genealogists may look at the census records for 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010 and draw a single, misleading conclusion: David spent nearly his entire life living with his mother.
So let my story serve as a lesson. Census records are valuable, but they can distort the story if relied on too heavily. They capture fleeting moments, but ignore the thousands of experiences in between. So as you explore the lives of your ancestors, be careful not to overlook the years in between as that’s where you’ll find the secrets and the stories that made each of them who they truly were.
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