EAST POINT - Freshly released files from the 1930 Census reveal some unusual mistakes. <br>
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On the census form for the home of Martin Luther King in Atlanta, a census worker incorrectly identified both King and his son as Marvin. Both the civil rights leader and his father were christened Michael, but the senior King changed their names to Martin not Marvin. <br>
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In southwest Georgia, 5-year-old Jimmy Carter of Plains was recorded as Jim E. Carter rather than James Earl Carter. <br>
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Detailed household census records are kept private for 72 years. <br>
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The National Archives and Records Administration released the 1930 census forms on Monday. <br>
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Charles Reeves, head of the National Archives Southeast Region office in East Point, opened his doors at midnight Sunday to allow the impatient a chance to view the nation's raw census documents, stored on microfilm, at the earliest moment the law permitted it. <br>
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For genealogists and historians, the once-a-decade release of the documents that are used to compile the Census' population and housing statistics is a boon. <br>
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But, as in the case of the Kings and Carter, it is not completely reliable. <br>
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Ed Trippe, a 78-year-old National Archives volunteer, pointed at the name Henry E. Trippe. <br>
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``That's me: Henry Edwin, but my age is wrong. It says I was six. It should have been seven,'' Trippe said. ``I was there when he took it. I remember.'' <br>
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The records provide other details of life in 1930. <br>
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Almost all of the Carter family's immediate neighbors in Plains, for example, were black. More than half of them had radios, as did the Carters. Almost everyone was a farmworker or worked for the railroad. <br>
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None of the Kings' immediate neighbors were white and none of them had radios. <br>
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King's father, a preacher, rented their house for $25 a month. But several people, including another preacher who lived next door, owned their homes. The neighboring preacher's home was valued at $3,500.
