1940 US Census Completely Indexed @ Ancestry.com

All 132 million individuals enumerated in the 1940 US Census images are now indexed and searchable by name at Ancestry.com. Congratulations to Ancestry. This monumental feat was accomplished in half the time I had expected it to take. Even if you do not have a paid Ancestry subscription, you may search these records free of charge -- at least until the end of 2013. Enjoy and learn about your family.


In addition to the all-name index, Ancestry has greatly improved the our viewing experience. A few of these enhancements are described below:

1. The names on the sheet are "typed out" as the indexer deciphered them. (see above arrow)

2. Abbreviated headings for each column are anchored and do not scroll out of sight. (see to right of arrow) 

3. An index of key information content can be viewed at the bottom of the screen by clicking  on the "Index" tab at the bottom of the screen. This feature can be hidden if you prefer not to see it. (see to right of arrow)

At this writing the consortium headed by FamilySearch has completed the indexing for about two-thirds of the states and territories and is nearing completing of many of the remaining areas. This project promises to provide free access perpetually.

1940 Census: Does Your State Have a Name Index?

Indexing of the 1940 Census is going faster than I had expected, but it still is not fast enough. God give us patience and hurry up about it! 


The images have only been available for three and a half months, and already name indexes are available for 38 states and the District of Columbia. No single site has name indexes for that many states. However, between FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com a majority of the country is now available for searching by name. Both are providing free access--at least until the end of 2013. FamilySearch promises free access forever. Below is a list of the states for which name indexes are already accessible:

	Ancestry.com	FamilySearch.org
Alabama	√	√
Alaska		√
Arizona	√	√
Arkansas
California	√	√
Colorado	√	√
Connecticut
Delaware	√	√
District of Columbia	√
Florida		√
Georgia	√
Hawaii	√	√
Idaho		√
Illinois
Indiana	√	√
Iowa		√
Kansas	√	√
Kentucky	√
Louisiana		√
Maine	√	√
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan	√
Minnesota		√
Mississippi		√
Missouri
Montana	√	√
Nebraska		√
Nevada	√	√
New Hampshire		√
New Jersey
New Mexico		√
New York	√
North Carolina
North Dakota	√	√
Ohio	√
Oklahoma		√
Oregon	√	√
Pennsylvania	√	√
Rhode Island	√	√
South Carolina
South Dakota		√
Tennessee	√
Texas
Utah		√
Vermont	√	√
Virginia	√	√
Washington	√	√
West Virginia
Wisconsin	√
Wyoming		√

What is coming next?

Ancestry claims the next batch of states will include "AK, AR, ID, MA, MN, MO, NM, ND, OK, RI, SD, UT". Ancestry also also offers the opportunity to signup to be notified when specific states have name indexes available to be searched.

Several states including Arkansas and Missouri appear on the verge of having their name indexes go live at FamilySearch. Texas, West Virginia and Pennsylvania may not be far behind.

Later this summer HeritageQuest plans to start rolling out its version of this census.

However, for the foreseeable future, anyone researching my wife's family in Chicago will have to rely on location searching using the helpful 1-Step guides prepared by Joel Weintraub and Steve Morse which have been discussed previously on this blog. So will any of you who are researching the Carolinas, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey. With better family planning we would not have allowed our families to live in these states in 1940.  

In any case I expect all these states to be available long before my original expectation of the end of 2012.  The friendly competition between the two indexing teams has been a great service to all of us. Thank you volunteers and paid employees alike who have caused this mammoth project to move along so quickly. 

1940 US Census Name Indexing Status

I am amazed at how fast the 1940 Census is being indexed. The images have been available for just 2 months and many states are completely indexed and can be searched by name. These include:

New Hampshire

Vermont

Delaware

Virginia

Florida

Kansas

Colorado

Wyoming

Arizona

Utah

Idaho

Nevada

Oregon

Alaska

Some of these are small state which were relatively easy to index, but Virginia and Florida? Even California is 97% indexed. On the other hand, Illinois where most of my wife’s ancestors were living is only 28% complete; North Carolina is only 15% complete and Tennessee 25%. Unfortunately until these states are completely indexed, searching by name will not be available.


Several other states are 100% indexed but are not yet searchable by name because the indexes have not be fully processed. They will be available soon.  They include:
Alabama
Mississippi
Louisiana
Oklahoma
South Dakota
Montana
Washington

You can check on the status of your favorite state. After you have clicked on the link in the previous sentence, run your cursor over your state of interest. 


Thank you to Family Search for taking the lead in this huge volunteer effort. And thank you to the volunteers who have made this possible because of their "love of the game." This is a great service to the genealogical community.

1940 Census: Supplemental Information

Future generations of genealogists will look fondly back at the 1940 Census as the high water mark of information of census information of genealogical value. It was the first census that used stratified sampling to collect information deemed useful for government policymakers.

As you probably know the US Census was NOT initiated in 1790 in order to provide 21st century genealogists with a treasure trove of family information. I think with 20/20 hindsight we would have had them design it very differently if that had been the case. Rather, it was conducted to apportion membership in the House of Representatives on the basis of population. Hence it became known as the "population census". At first only heads of household were listed by name. Gradually the government started asking more questions to help decision makers.

In a great leap forward, the 1850 census started listing by name all the non-enslaved individuals. All individuals were listed starting in 1870. By 1880 the masses of immigrants made the government interested in countries of birth of both individuals and their parents. In 1900 year of arrival of foreign born residents as well as their citizenship status was added. Gradually the census was becoming more information rich and more cumbersome to collect. 


By 1940 the tide of immigration had ebbed and the Great Depression had turned more attention to economic issues. These trends are evident in the questions asked. By then statisticians had begun to convince the Bureau of the Census that stratified sampling would provide a useful a picture of the population as a whole with a whole lot less cost and effort. Thus the supplemental form was introduced for those of us who are fortunate enough to have family members enumerated on lines 14 and/or 29 of the main census form. If you fall into this category, be sure to look down to the bottom of the image on which your relatives are listed. Although everyone was asked where they were born and where they had been living in 1935, only 5% were asked where their parents were born and several questions about their participation in a new government program called Social Security.


When I located the image below, I was pleased to notice that the individuals on both line 14 and line 29 were persons of family interest:
 

Census Image for Boone Station, Alamance County, NC (Click on image to see original)

Leonard Kernodle on line 14 is the great-granduncle of five of my seven grandsons and Clyde Smithey on line 29 is their great-grandfather.

It is always important to look at an entire census record. Too often our excitement of discovery causes us to tunnel-vision in on our relative and to ignore the other relevant community information. Were our ancestors as well off as their neighbors? Were they related to their neighbors by family or by occupation or country of origin?

In this case Clyde Smithey did not go very far down Old Elon College-Ossippe Road to find a bride when he was married later that year. He married Leonard's sister Minnie Lea who was listed on line 15.
   

1940 Census for Big Cities as well as Vilages

Last week I reported on my first venture into the 1940 US Census. It was a small town in which I knew my grandparents had lived for a long time. For me it was the perfect place to start. 


Since then I have ventured out farther. I tried another small town in which I thought my dad was living about 3 weeks before my parents got married. Voila, there he was. He was listed as MARRIED. Well, there was a modest line drawn through the "M"; but it was not changed to "S". Maybe he had told the enumerator he was getting married soon. In the small town of Jamesport, MO, the enumerator probably knew the Baptist minister was getting married. Who knows. The census record also told me that he had worked 48 hours the previous week and that he had earned $480 dollars in 1939 for 32 weeks of work. (He had graduated from seminary in 1939.) His education level was C7 which documented his four years as an undergraduate and three years as a seminarian. He was paying $5 monthly for rent. "Neosho, Kansas" was listed as his residence on April 1, 1935 (five years previous). No more specific information was added other than an "R" which indicated that residence was not in a city, town or village of more than 2,500 residents. That was at least partially correct. On that date he was completing his junior year at Ottawa University but his permanent address was probably still in Neosho County.


Finding my mother turned out to be a little more problematic. The primary reason was that I was unsure in which small town she was teaching school in 1940. Even though she was a female and had less formal education (C3) than my dad, she had earned $675 for 36 weeks of work in 1939. She was a "boarder" but no amount is listed for the rent she was paying. She was single. Her landlady was the informant for this enumeration.


Researchers now have several sources for the 1940 Census images:
1. US National Archives (NARA)
2. FamilySearch.org
3. Ancestry.com
4. MyHeritage.com
5. FamilyLink.com
Each of these sites has its own strengths and weaknesses. It is not my intent to provide a detailed review here -- at least not yet. However, researchers should be aware of all of them. If you are having a problem on one site, try another. The 1-Step site of Steve Morse and Joel Weintraub link to each of these sources for images. The sites also offer search engines -- often based on the 1-Step search engine.


I found the  FamilySearch site to be very helpful in locating villages in Missouri when I was searching for my mother. However, the print utility is still awkward to use. One very useful feature is the map that updates how much of what states have been indexed. Some examples from early this morning were:
1. Delaware 100%
2. Kansas 95%
3. California 7%
4. Nebraska 2%
5. Oregon 92%
6. Washington 0%
7. New York 1%
8. Colorado 97%
THANK YOU to FamilySearch for their leadership and to the volunteers who are making this happen this quickly!


If you know precisely where your family members were living in April, 1940; you can probably find them now. If you don't, I hope they lived in Delaware, Kansas, Colorado or Oregon!


I just found my wife's great-grandparents in Chicago by locating their Enumeration District (ED) in 1930 (using a name search in Ancestry.com) and using the  1-Step to convert that to the 1940 ED. For me it is easier to scan cities for street addresses in the extreme left column than it is to scan the images for surnames. One thing I was reminded of is that enumerators do not take the census in strict house number order. They walk down one side of a block and often go around the corner to a different street (or two or three) before doubling back to record the other side of the street. In some cases the other side of the street is even in a different ED. In the case of my wife's great-grandparents, the other side of their street was enumerated on image #5 for their ED. They were about 20 images removed.