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1929 Street Directory

Sun, 12 May 2013 20:46:00 -0400

Some time ago I looked in Boyd's City Directory to confirm addresses in the 1930 Census. Sometimes the addresses and names matched up, sometimes they did not. The city directories are helpful tools in seeing who lived at your address. Currently my copy is over at Google Docs (follow link). The third page in the PDF document is First Street NW.

Lucky C. Young

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 20:44:42 -0400

This was originally published on the Inshaw Blog on January 9, 2013.

I swear that I've written about Lucky C. Young before but I have not found him on my blog. Maybe it was one of those posts that never made it past the draft stage.

There are many houses in Truxton Circle that have housed more than one household. Several homes were built as two flat units, so when I was cleaning up data for the 1930 census it wasn't so unusual to have two households at 1203 New Jersey Avenue NW. What was unusual, and why I thought there was some clean up needed, one household was listed as Black and the other white. The first family were the African American Chambers family, with a father, mother and their 17 year old daughter. At the very end of the page were the Youngs, Lucky C. and his wife Estelle and they were clearly listed as white. Considering everyone else on the 1200 block of NJ Ave was Black, the Youngs didn't seem right, so I researched them.

I could not find anything on Estelle Young. She was 27 at the time and the census doesn't show how long she and Lucky were married.

History of Sq. 520

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 22:42:00 -0500

This will be cross posted at http://blog.inshaw.com/2013/02/history-of-sq-520.html

I looked back at my history of Sq. 618, the block bounded by N St, New York Ave and 1st St. I see the problem with it, I tried to say too much. That's the problem with the census data and looking at the detailed changes over time, there is just too much. So I decided to switch it up and tell a tale where the info isn't that new to me and I can try to keep the stories simple. Try.
In 1880 there were only 6 people listed as living on the square. There was a carpenter living alone at 305 Q St and the Miller family at 1600 3rd St NW. The Franco-Prussian Miller family interests me (not as much as the 100% German Glorius family on Sq. 519), because the head, John Miller's name is shown as owning most of Sq. 520 and a good portion of Sq. 509E. You can see it on the map shown here, where a tiny bit of the neighboring square is shown. At the time of the 1880 census Mr. Miller had reached the ripe old age of 77, so you can imagine by the 1900 census, he was very, very dead.

Take it and Use it

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 09:39:39 -0500

I love hearing from residents that you've used this website and learned a little something about where you live, be it your house or just learning about your street. Most people look at the history of their own address, and that is good too. What really impressed me this week was someone took the census data and mapped it out so people can see the changes in population, race, age and gender from 1880 to 1940 by going to http://www.unit201.net/tc1/ .

Mapping is not one of my talents, so I am very happy when others take their talents and make use of this data. If you have made use of this website and it is something that can be shared with everyone, please contact me at mari at inshaw dot com.

Truxton Circle Project at the DC Humanities Council Presentation

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 17:34:41 -0500

Tomorrow, December 6th from 6:30 to 8:30 at the All Souls Unitarian Church at 1500 Harvard St NW (Columbia Heights metro). This and other DC Humanities grantees will show off what we've been doing this summer. Of course you can see what The Truxton Circle Neighborhood Genealogy Project (with North Capitol Main Streets, Inc) has been up to right here. But there you will have an opportunity to ask questions. Please see http://www.wdchumanities.org/ for more information.

All Mapped Out

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 17:37:55 -0400

Well there are now about 100 maps on the Truxton Circle site ranging from microfilm and hard copies found in the Washingtonia Division at the Martin Luther King DC Public Library at Gallery Place to aerial maps created by the U.S. Geological Survey (a government agency) in the 1950s.

Whereas the census data can tell about the social and demographic changes of the neighborhood the maps show changes in property lines, streets, courts and alleys the come and go, as well as houses that do the same. See Square 519 (bounded by Florida Ave, 3rd, R and 4th Sts NW) that begins with the German Glorius family in 1887 taking up the whole block and as we move into the 20th century the family has divided the block into lots and later sells the majority of the property to Harry Wardman, a developer. We also see blocks that in no way resemble their current layout. From the start Square 551changes, where there were a few houses here and there in 1887, it builds up in 1903 and 1909 with more housing along 1st St NW where there were none and more housing appears in the alleys. By 1924 a bunch of warehouses and between 1951-1952 we see trucks and a small light industrial area. There is more to the story, but here it's just the beginning to learning about the thousands of stories this neighborhood holds.

All Squares have 1940 data

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 21:01:16 -0400

There are still some corrections to be made but a majority of the data for 1940 is up and available. I still need to clean up and make available some data from the 1930 census regarding Square 554 and there are at least a 100 lines in the 1940 census where there was no house or street address for people. That will require more research. But for the most part, there is a high chance that if you are looking for your home and your street there will be data. If there isn't please contact me.

More updates.

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:09:39 -0400

Added since last are squares 552, 553, 553w, 614 and 615.

Sq 555 Updated

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:03:54 -0400

Nothing special. Just the nice big block at the corner of New Hersey and Florida has been uploaded. With the possibility of a handful of lines that need research this square is done. Completely done.

Sq 554 Updated

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:30:38 -0400

I was hoping to add a bunch of new updates, but I figured one is better than none. So I bring forth Sq. 554 version 2. Unfortunately I spotted a problem. It appears that there is some data missing from 1930. There should be more people, because there were more people in 1940. I might have thought the population went down due to the expansion of Dunbar, but with the 1940 data, I don't think that is the case now.

Updates and missing items

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 21:19:17 -0400

Sorry for the long silence. I was working on some data that was missing. It appeared that I didn't have a spreadsheet for ED 38 for the year 1930. So I indexed it myself, proving that the indexers I have on the project, Eriall Steiner and Karen King do a much better job than I.

I have updated squares 507, 509, 519, 520, 521, 550, and 551. 521 to 551 have 1940 added to them. I also noticed in these updates that data for 550 for the year 1910 looks a little slim. I know more people lived there, I just have to get or find the data for them.

If you are using this data please drop me a line to tell me how, I'm curious to know.

Thanks.

1940

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 22:17:53 -0400

There is 1940. I've gotten back a few enumeration districts. Unfortunately many addresses have been left blank on the enumerator's sheets or written in such small hand that it is very difficult to read. Those have been set aside so even though there may be a 1940 sheet, it may not be complete. The Squares with 1940 are 507, 509E, 519, and 520.

Surprised by Copyright

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 22:28:08 -0400

About a decade ago I knew copyright issues relating to the library field like the back of my hand. Now, apparently, not so much.

I have on my own computer for research purposes, color and b/w maps for the Truxton Circle area ranging from 1850s to the 1930s. I was going to place them on this site when it struck me that some would still be protected by copyright. For some reason I thought everything after 1927 was in the public domain. I found out that the date is 1923. Anything after that will need some research to determine if it is in the public domain. I know the Sanborn maps, are probably not in the public domain as the map company is still in business and could have renewed its copyright.

I have placed the 1887 G,M, Hopkins maps up on the map page. Those are in the public domain. So are the maps from 1907, 1909, 1915, and 1921. In the coming weeks I shall place those on this website.

Trapped by the narrative

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:58:49 -0400

I have finished a lovely sic-fi book by John Scalzi called "Redshirts: A Novel in Three Codas." A major theme was "The Narrative" the defining theme that for the characters meant that every time the captain took the crew on an away mission, the crew in the redshirt usually wound up dying. This idea of "the narrative" stuck with me as there are large narratives that are repeated and revisited with different (feminist, Marxist, act) perspectives.

What I am hoping for with this project, is to let the data determine the narrative, as opposed to looking for data to support a theme or a particular narrative. When I first engaged in this project years ago with the 1880 data for Truxton Circle, it was interesting. The neighborhood, if you could call a handful of occupied blocks and a bunch of unoccupied ones along what I best could tell were unpaved roads, a neighborhood. Then Truxton was a racially mixed one. Different ethnic groups lived near each other. As I mapped out other census years using the closest available real estate or fire map, I noticed a pattern the changed and shifted with the time that blew away narratives regarding segregation in my mind.

TC- Genie Blog

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 20:07:50 -0400

Hello there. This blog hopefully will document some of what's going on with the project I call "Truxton Circle- A neighborhood genealogy".

First up, the census. To get ready, I've started looking at the 1940 census for the Truxton Circle neighborhood and noticed some challenges. Several pages of one enumeration district have no street names. Yes, that is a challenge. They are identified by blocks but sometimes it is several blocks and I don't know if I want to leave that up solely to the process of elimination. I may try looking at the City Directory for that time, which may or may not help. Most people on those pages were renters and maybe more mobile.

We'll see.