1970 HUNGARIAN CENSUS OF POPULATION Information on the data collection and processing (1977)

I. THE COMPREHENSIVE REWIEV OF THE DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING - 5. The performing of the registration

For propaganda purposes, the programmes of the newsreel have also been used; in smaller communities, however, the required information had been announced by the traditional beat of drum. e/ THE EXECUTION OF THE REGISTRATION On the basis of the Directory - handed over to the census-taker in the course of the trainig the census-taker has perambulated his district between 29-31 of December 1969 in order to get acquainted with his territory. During the perambulation he has controlled whether the streets, squares etc. are included to the Directory according to their actual denominations being valid; whether the streetnumbers cover the real situation and whether the addresses of each building are enumerated. If the Directory contained wrong addresses or it has proven deficient, the errors had to be corrected, and the deficiencies to be supplied. After having perambulated his district, the census-taker has made a preliminary work-plan which gave answer to the question, which houses and flats, on which day will presumably come to registration during the period being at disposal and, taking all this into consideration, at what time he will be able to hand over the registered material to the competent supervisor. st The theoretical census moment was fixed for the midnight between the 31 of December 1969 and the l

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t of January 1970. nd The registration was begun on the 2 January 1970 and, according to the preliminary workplan, it had to be finished not later than the 12

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h January 1970. As far as the institutional households st are concerned, the registration had to be performed or at least begun on the 1 January. The census-taker performed his activity by going from door to door within the census district. The questionaries have been filled in by the census-taker by means of interrogation. It was not permitted to insist upon the production of documents verifying the answers given (identity card, school records etc.). In exceptional cases, as for instance with aged persons, if the latter were unable to give correct answers, the census-taker could hint at the inspection of the necessary documents. If the census-taker has found the door closed or if only persons under age stayed at home, he left behind a form entitled "Notification of the date of the registration" in which he announced the exact time (day, hour) of his next visit in order to perform the registration. It happened sometimes-that the census-taker was unable to collect the data concerning a whole family since he could not find them all at home, even after many repeated visits. In such cases, he recorded for himself on the form entitled "Instructions for autoregistration" at what time he will return to take away the forms to be filled in, and he left behind the notification as well as the forms necessary to the registration. The forms filled in by the person himself required special attention of the census-taker from the point of view of the control. The documents put in proper order have been handed over by the census-taker to his supervisor on the 14**

1 January 1970. 39