The research site which provides the data and the information for this report is a predominantly Black rural town which operates within a complex mixture of formal and informal social arrangements. The significance of these arrangements for censusing emerges in a system of overlapping mailing, addressing and residential patterns which defy many of the assumptions of established research methodologies. This is evident in the residents’ notions of ‘living place’ and ‘staying place’: and in what will be referred to in this report as location patterns. These location patterns provide a classic example of informal adaptations to formal rules and procedures. An examination of ethnographic and census results indicates that sane social arrangements in this community may have a significant effect upon census coverage overall, and upon the coverage of particular types of individuals. Coverage effects emerge in differences in census and ethnographic household coverage and in differences in census and ethnographic individual coverage.