When the 1940 census is released on
April 2, 2012 there will be no surname index available. With a little advance preparation, however, you will be able to find your ancestors. In order to find your ancestors before an
index is available you will need to know the census enumeration district (ED). That requires that you know the place where
they were living in 1940. If you cannot find where your ancestor was living in
1940 you will need to wait until the indexes are completed late in 2012.
There are several websites that
will be of help in determining the ED for your ancestor. They are the National Archives website: http://www.archives.gov/research/census/1940/start-research.html and the Steve Morse census utilities: http://stevemorse.org/census. I found using the Steve Morse
utilities to be the easiest. Following
are examples of each of the types of procedures, large city, small city/rural
and knowing the 1930 ED.
First example: My
paternal grandparents lived at 6667 Bantry Avenue, Cincinnati, OH in 1940. I used Steve Morse’s utility for large
cities.
 |
| Click to Enlarge |
When the census is released I will look for Ohio ED 91-228 and browse looking for Bantry Ave, house number 6667.
At the
bottom of the screen at View Present . . . click on Google and then street view, and
you will see the picture that Google has taken of that location.
This is the
picture of my grandparent's house taken by Google in 2009.
Second example: My parents, older sister and I
lived at East Franklin Av, Centerville, OH. I used Steve Morse’s utility
“Finding ED Definitions for 1940 in One Step.”
 |
| Click to Enlarge |
Click search then you will see.
 |
| Click to Enlarge |
When the census is released I will look for Ohio ED- 63 and ED – 64 and browse looking for East Franklin Avenue, family of Elwood Burkholz. (I don't know if they lived in Centerville Village).
 |
| Click to Enlarge |
When
the census is released I will look for Ohio ED 31–77 and 31-78 and browse for
the Ulysses Cole family.
Doing your homework
now will make it very easy to find your ancestor in the 1940 census without a
surname index.
When the
1940 census is released free online this April 2 at 9 a.m. ET, you can view
your ancestors’ records free at 1940census.archives.gov.
According to
the National Archives announcement, no other website will host the 1940 census
data on its April 2 release date. Shortly after, though, you’ll also be able to
view records free on Ancestry.com.
Submitted by Gail Burkholz
Submitted by Gail Burkholz
Hi,
ReplyDeleteJust to add to your post. First, we recommend that users of our One Step tools first use the tutorial quiz at: http://stevemorse.org/census/quiz.php
Also, we suggest you get a "second opinion" when you get an result. If you notice on your Cincinnati example, that the results when you get down to a single ED # shows a simple definition for the ED, and to the right of that a column marked T1224 (the NARA roll series) and underneath that "view". If you pressed "view" you would have seen each block in that ED, with the streets on each block in the order of north/east/south/west, and could find the exact block where the house was located. It's an important check on our data sets.
Joel Weintraub
Dana Point, CA
https://sites/google.com/site/census1940/