A family includes a householder and one or more other people living in the same household who are related to the householder by birth, marriage, or adoption. All people in a household who are related to the householder are regarded as members of his or her family. A household can contain only one family for purposes of census tabulations. Not all households contain families since a household may be a group of unrelated people or one person living alone.

Families are classified by type as either a "married-couple family" or an "other family" according to the presence of a spouse. "Other family" is further broken out according to the sex of the householder. The data on family type are based on answers to questions on sex and relationship that were asked on a 100-percent basis.

People may have chosen to provide two or more races either by checking two or more race response check boxes, by providing multiple write-in responses, or by some combination of check boxes and write-in responses. The race response categories shown on the questionnaire are collapsed into the five minimum race groups identified by the OMB, and the Census Bureau "Some other race" category. For data product purposes, "Two or more races" refers to combinations of two or more of the following race categories:

1. White
2. Black or African American
3. American Indian and Alaska Native
4. Asian
5. Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander
6. Some other race

There are 57 possible combinations (see Figure B-1) involving the race categories shown above. Thus, according to this approach, a response of "White" and "Asian" was tallied as two or more races, while a response of "Japanese" and "Chinese" was not because "Japanese" and "Chinese" are both Asian responses. Tabulations of responses involving reporting of two or more races within the American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, or Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander categories are available in other data products.

Given the many possible ways of displaying data on two or more races, data products will provide varying levels of detail. The most common presentation shows a single line indicating "Two or more races." Some data products provide totals of all 57 possible combinations of two or more races, as well as subtotals of people reporting a specific number of races, such as people reporting two races, people reporting three races, and so on.

In other presentations on race, data are shown for the total number of people who reported one of the six categories alone or in combination with one or more other race categories. For example, the category "Asian alone or in combination with one or more other races" includes people who reported Asian alone and people who reported Asian in combination with White, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and Some other race. This number, therefore, represents the maximum number of people who reported as Asian in the question on race. When this data presentation is used, the individual race categories will add to more than the total population because people may be included in more than one category.

The data on relationship to householder were derived from the question "How is this person related to Person 1," which was asked of Persons 2 and higher in housing units. One person in each household is designated as the householder (Person 1). In most cases, this is the person, or one of the people, in whose name the home is owned, being bought, or rented. If there is no such person in the household, any household member 15 years old or over could be designated as the householder (that is, Person 1).

Households are classified by type according to the sex of the householder and the presence of relatives. Two types of householders are distinguished: family householders and nonfamily householders. A family householder is a householder living with one or more people related to him or her by birth, marriage, or adoption. The householder and all of the people in the household related to him or her are family members. A nonfamily householder is a householder living alone or with nonrelatives only.