The 1930 census and all existing soundex indices are now available at the National Archives Building, 700 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20408-0001, and at NARA's Regional Facilities in 13 major cities, and at many libraries all across the country, including both St. Louis Public Library and the St. Louis County Library.

Note that neither Missouri nor Illinois have been indexed, and therefore I've set up this page to provide some finding aids in the search of your ancestors (or yourself). The task of finding someone in the 1930 Census is going to depend on knowing the exact residential address of the individual. Then, using either the maps or compiled data that I now have, you should be able to go directly to Enumeration District microfilm required.

The census day was April 1, 1930. The Missouri Census records are contained on 78 rolls of Microfilm (1174-1251), and Illinois Census records are contained on 169 rolls (405-573).

Although this site deals exclusively with the Metropolitan St. Louis area, there is additional help available for many cities (including St. Louis). Drs. Stephen P. Morse, Joel D. Weintraub, and David R. Kehs have generated some awesome finding aids for major metro areas. You can visit their monumental work at "Obtaining EDs for the 1930 Census in One Step (Large Cities) ". If you have research outside the St. Louis area I strongly recommend that you take a look.

Another website that can prove very helpful is the LDS City Directories at your local FHL.

Correlation of 1920 Enumeration Districts to 1930 Enumeration Districts. This is the easiest way to get right to the correct 1930 ED. If the person you are searching for lived in the same place in both the 1920 and 1930 census enumeration (and know the 1920 ED) then just use this table to find the 1930 ED.

Using copies of the 290 page detail description of the Enumeration Districts of St. Louis City lead to this finding aid. Click here for example of detail. To aid in the identification of the appropriate EDs referred to in the above description, Dr. Joel Weintraub has compiled the entire "EDs to Streets" listing (585 Enumeration Districts within the City of St. Louis). I've modified his work (slightly) by putting it into matrix form. Click here for "City Street names to 1930 EDs". Note: this finding aid covers the City only.

I've added basically the same thing for St. Louis County, and also included Township and population within each of the 144 EDs. I have transcribed the 56 page detail description of the Enumeration Districts of St. Louis County. Click here for "County Boundaries to 1930 EDs".

I also have copies of the 137 page detail tabulation of the Enumeration Districts of St. Louis Metropolitan Area (including St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Madison County (IL), and St. Clair County (IL). If you need this info please let me know.

I've place the detail Enumeration District Map of the City of St. Louis (showing tract boundaries). To make life a little easier, you can click here for 1930 Street Index. NOTE: These files are HUGE because I needed to make them legible enough to read street names. If you think you are going to use these maps frequently I'd suggest you save each section to your fixed disk to save download time (and bandwidth usage). Legend Labels 1, 2, 3 4, 5, 6, 7 8, 9, 10, 11 12, 13, 14 A, B, C D, E, F, G, H

Here is a detail Census Map of the City and County of St. Louis, and the Counties of Madison and St. Clair in Illinois. In most case you can simply view the map to determine the ED of the various areas.

After you've found the folks you're looking for I hope you'll consider transcribing one or more of the many orphanages, old age homes, hospitals, etc. Click here for the 1930 Volunteer Transcription Project.

Click here for a blank 1930 census form (in PDF format) to use in your transcriptions.


The following table gives the Population of the 10 Largest United States Urban Places: 1930

Rank	Place (Metropolitan Area)	Population	Land Area (Sq. Miles)	Density (average population per sq. mile)
1	New York City	6,930,446	299.0	23,179
2	Chicago	3,376,438	201.9	16,723
3	Philadelphia	1,950,961	128.0	15,242
4	Detroit	1,568,662	137.9	11,375
5	Los Angeles	1,238,048	440.3	2,812
6	Cleveland	900,429	70.8	12,718
7	St. Louis	821,960*	61.0	13,475
8	Baltimore	804,874	78.7	10,227
9	Boston	781,188	43.9	17,795
10	Pittsburgh	669,817	51.3	13,057

* NOTE: Although this numerical data is defined as population of "Urban Places" the St. Louis figure is for the City of St. Louis only (by comparison, in the year 2000 Census, this same land area had a population of only 348,189). St. Louis County had an additional 1930 population of 211,610, broken down into the following Townships:

Township	Population
Bonhomme	17069
Carondelet	30993
Central	130678
Meramec	4221
St. Ferdinand	28632

The 1930 Census enumerators asked a total of 31 questions.

Send your comments to Dave Lossos

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