R. David Kasher on Parashat Pinhas: How to Read a Census

Ta Shma

For my mother’s 75th birthday, we surprised her by taking her to visit her mother’s childhood home. I knew my grandmother had grown up in Los Angeles, but I didn’t know exactly where, and there were no living relatives whom I could ask. So I did what anyone seeking information does these days: I Googled my grandmother’s name, hoping something would pop up. That modern technology led me to an ancient one: the census. I found online copies of the first two censuses taken in my grandmother’s lifetime, one when she was 4½ and the next one when she was 15. The second one was the jackpot: I found an address.

But I also noticed that something had changed between the two records. There was one fewer member of the house. My grandmother’s father was no longer listed. He hadn’t died—I could Google that information too—he was simply gone. This confirmed a family story I’d overheard but never spoken about with my grandmother: that her father had run out on the family when she was 11 and she had never spoken to him again. There it was, in black and white, a tragic tale between the lines. It’s amazing what you can learn from reading a census, if you know what to look for.