By Sara Chatfield

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I have a confession to make: the Instructions to Commissioners and Enumerators is my favourite part of a census. My enthusiasm for these directions was documented in my previous blog post about the instructions for the 1926 Census. When I learned that the 1931 Census was going to be released, my first thought was, “What new questions did they ask that year?” Luckily, there is a 108-page document digitized by Statistics Canada that was full of information for me to examine.

The cover page from the Instructions to Commissioners and Enumerators (OCLC 1007621746)

The document has a cover page declaring that it is the Instructions to Commissioners and Enumerators for the Seventh Census of Canada, 1931 by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics.

The first section of the document, titled “General Provisions,” is administrative in nature. In this section, you can learn more about the employment side of enumerating the 1931 Census. There is information about the date on which the census enumeration began, the daily earnings of the commissioners, the enumerators’ rights, and how to handle refusals to answer. In the case of refusals to answer, the enumerator was cautioned that “… it is of the utmost importance that his manner should, under all circumstances, be courteous and conciliatory. In no instance should he lose his temper or indulge in disputation or threats. Much can be accomplished by tact and persuasion. Many persons will give information after a night’s reflection which they refused to give when first visited.”

There is also an entry in the General section stating: “No employee can farm out his work. It is not permitted to a commissioner, enumerator or other employee of the Census to engage a substitute or to farm out his work to another.”

A portion from the Instructions to Commissioners and Enumerators stating that “No employee can farm out his work.” (OCLC 1007621746)

Beyond learning more about the job conditions of the enumerators (the individuals who collected information for the census) or the commissioners (the individuals who trained and supervised the enumerators, and checked their work), the General section is worth reading because it gives vital information like “Indian Reserves shall not form part of any enumeration area; their enumeration will be made by officials of the Indian Department.” It is very important to know this if you are researching Indigenous communities or ancestors.

The next section of the document is titled “Instructions Relating to the Population Schedule.” This section will give researchers clear indications about who was enumerated as a member of the family, who was not to be enumerated as a family member, and how the enumerator noted the information given by the respondent. This is helpful if your family of interest includes a student, a visitor, a domestic servant or a labourer, a sailor or fisher away at sea, or a member of a railroad or construction camp. The Population section also gives the enumerator clear instructions on how to populate each of the columns, for example, column 7 (class of house) and column 8 (materials of construction).

A portion of the instructions listing how houses and construction materials should be noted in the census (OCLC 1007621746)

Compared with the instructions to the enumerator for the 1921 Census, it appears that more information was provided in 1931 about who should be enumerated as family members. The 1931 instructions to the enumerator give more options and more detailed descriptions. As well, a new column was added in 1931 to determine how many families had a radio. This was the dawn of telecommunications! We can speculate that respondents were asked whether they had a radio in the home as a measure of how quickly and broadly information could be disseminated. The 1931 Census is a way to track this then-new form of pop culture on the rise!

The 1931 Census asked how many Canadian families had a radio (OCLC 1007621746)

Another part of the 1931 instructions that was expanded was about people who were born outside Canada. The 1921 instructions were that “if a person says he was born in Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, or Turkey, as they were before the war, enter the name of the Province (State or Region) in which born, as Alsace-Lorraine, Bohemia, Bavaria, German or Russian Poland, Croatia, Galicia, Finland, Slovakland, etc.; or the name of the city or town in which born, as Berlin, Prague, Vienna, etc.” The 1931 instructions include border changes and new geopolitical realities, now that the world was more than 10 years from the end of the First World War.

Detailed instructions on how to enter the place of birth if the person was born outside Canada (OCLC 1007621746)

These are just a few of the instructions from the document that stood out for me. We would love to hear which parts of the instructions you found the most interesting or helpful!

Sara Chatfield is a project manager in the Access and Services Branch at Library and Archives Canada.