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1940 census

2 February 2012, 8:30 pm

The 1940 US census is being released on 2 April.  It will be available as free digital images on the internet. We just found out today that the 1940 census will be on a new website called CensusRecords.com. That website will have all the US census records from 1790 to 1940 but only the 1940 records will be free. It appears that to view free records, including the 1940 census, that you will have to create an account on the website.

To get you started; these are the questions asked on the 1940 census:

  1. Street, avenue, road, etc.
  2. House number
  3. Number of household in order of visitation
  4. Home owned (O) or rented (R)
  5. Value of home, if owned, or monthly rental, if rented
  6. Does this household live on a farm? (Yes or No)
  7. Name of each person whose usual place of residence on April 1, 1940, was in this household.
  8. Relationship of this person to the head of the household, as wife, daughter, father, mother-in-law, grandson, lodger, lodger’s wife, servant, hired hand, etc.
  9. Sex — Male (M), Female (F)
  10. Color or race
  11. Age at last birthday
  12. Marital status — Single (S), Married (M), Widowed (Wd), Divorced (D)
  13. Attended school or college any time since March 1, 1940 (Yes or No)
  14. Highest grade of school completed
  15. If born in the United States, give State, Territory, or possession. If foreign born, give country in which birthplace was situated on January 1, 1937. Distinguish Canada-French from Canada-English and Irish Free State (Eire) from Northern Ireland.
  16. Citizenship of the foreign born
  17. City, town, or village (in 1935) having 2,500 or more inhabitants. Enter “R” for all other places
  18. County (in 1935)
  19. State (or Territory or foreign country) (in 1935)
  20. On a farm? (in 1935) (Yes or No)
  21. Was this person AT WORK for pay or profit in private or nonemergency Govt. work during week of March 24-30? (Yes or No)
  22. If not, was he at work on, or assigned to, public EMERGENCY WORK (WPA, NYA, CCC, etc.) during week of March 24-30? (Yes or No)
  23. Was this person SEEKING WORK? (Yes or No)
  24. If not seeking work, did he HAVE A JOB, business, etc.? (Yes or No)
  25. Indicate whether engaged in home housework (H) in school (S), unable to work (U), or other (O)
  26. Number of hours worked during week of March 24-30, 1940
  27. Duration of unemploymen up to March 30, 1940 – in weeks
  28. Occupation: Trade, profession, or particular kind of work
  29. Industry: Industry of business
  30. Class of worker
  31. Number of weeks worked in 1939 (Equivalent full-time weeks)
  32. Amount of money wages or salary received (in 1939) (including commissions)
  33. Did this person receive income of $50 or more from sources other than money wages or salary? (in 1939) (Yes or No)
  34. Number of Farm Schedule

Plus there are supplemental questions asked for 2 people on each census sheet of 30 people. Those questions are:

  1. Name
  2. Place of birth of Father
  3. Place of birth of Mother
  4. Mother Tongue. Language spoken in home in earliest childhood
  5. Is this person a veteran of the United States military forces; or the wife, widow, or under-18-year-old child of a veteran? If so, enter “Yes”
  6. If child, is veteran-father dead (Yes or No)
  7. (Veteran) War or military service
  8. Does this person have a Federal Social Security Number? (Yes or No)
  9. Were deductions for Federal Old-Age Insurance or Railroad Retirement made from this person’s wages or salary in 1939? (Yes or No)
  10. Usual Occupation
  11. Usual Industry
  12. Usual class of worker
  13. For all women who are or have been married: Has this woman been married more than once? (Yes or No)
  14. Age at first marriage?
  15. Number of children ever born (Do not include stillbirths)

There are some interesting questions asked in this census. Question #14 asks for the highest grade of school completed. Then there are those questions (17-20) that ask where the person lived in 1935. For people like my parents who moved often this will help pin them down in between 1930 and 1940. Plus there are questions about income and more detailed questions about occupation.

The National Archives has a 1940 census page that gives more detailed information on the census. They also include a link to a downloadable census form that you can use to record your family data. That form is best if printed on legal size (8.5×14) paper. Plus they have a countdown clock showing the time, to the second, until the census is released. After that time, a link should tell where the images will be located.

It is very important to note that no index of the 1940 census will be available on 2 April. If your families lived in a small town then you can search page by page. If they lived in a larger location then you may want to visit Steve Morse’s Unified 1940 Census Election District Finder page. You put in the name of the city and street, if you have it, and it will tell which election districts of the census you will need to search. It will help to cut down your search time. An index will be available but there is no telling how long it will take to produce. Family Search and some other organizations are looking for volunteers to help index the 1940 census. You can sit at your home computer and be a benefit to other genealogists. For more information or to sign up visit the FS 1940 census page. Those indexes will be available to all for free when finished.

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RootsTech – Cloud Storage

2 February 2012, 4:40 pm

The second free online presentation at the Rootstech conference was “Do I Trust the Cloud?” by D. Joshua Taylor. He described why genealogists need to back-up their data to “the cloud.” “The cloud” is a fancy name for a place on the internet where you can store copies of your important computer files. Those can be photos, documents, music, videos and/or genealogy databases. Most of the cloud websites allow you to share some or all of those files with others. If your computer is damaged or you inadvertently delete a file, you can restore your files from the cloud storage. You can download an outline of Mr. Taylor’s presentation on this page in both document and PDF formats.

Dennis Hogan and myself gave a similar talk in January at the RGS Computer Interest Group. We convinced a few people that it is to their benefit to use Cloud storage to preserve their important computer files. The cost of cloud storage is now within everyone’s budget.

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RootsTech – Opening Keynote

2 February 2012, 2:14 pm

The keynote speaker for the opening session of the Rootstech conference was Jay L. Verkler who was the former director of FamilySearch.org. His talk centered on the possibilities of the future of genealogy. He showed a girl in 2060 asking her phone to find her ancestors which it did in just minutes. He also showed a future website where people were automatically linked to their cousins.

Mr. Verkler also introduced a couple of guys from Google that demonstrated an add-on to their Chrome browser that will find additional genealogical data on people. That is already working on FamilySearch.org WeRelate.org and a couple other websites. They also talked about how webmasters can add what they called “microdata” to their website to add their web pages to the genealogical data indexed by Google. Both of those subjects will be discussed more tomorrow (Friday) in a free online session at 1 p.m. (eastern; 10 a.m. western). Just go to the Rootstech website for that or other  free sessions.

Mr. Verkler also mentioned that web pages disappear over time although I am not sure what his point was. He said that the average lifetime of a web page is 3 years. Must Mr. Verkler hasn’t heard of Archive.org which has one part of their website called the “Wayback Machine” that archives  web pages. In fact, my web pages from 1997 are on there. They don’t archive pictures but text and HTML (web page formatting) is preserved.

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RootsTech Free Online Sessions

28 January 2012, 9:00 am

This coming weekend the RootsTech genealogy conference will be in Salt Lake City, Utah. They announced  that fourteen of its popular sessions will be broadcasted live over the internet. The live broadcasts will give those unable to attend in person a sample of this year’s sessions. If interested, you can watch the live presentations at RootsTech.org.

The free online sessions include the keynote speakers and a sampling of technology and family history presentations. These are the fourteen broadcasted sessions and speakers. All times are in Mountain Standard Time (MST) so add 2 hours for Eastern and subtract 1 hour for Western:

Thursday, February 2
8:30-10:00 am, Inventing the Future, as a Community (Keynote Address) by Jay L. Verkler
11:00 am-12:00 pm, Do I Trust the Cloud? by D. Joshua Taylor
1:45-2:45 pm, Effective Database Search Tactics by Kory Meyerink
3:00-4:00 pm, Twitter – It’s Not Just “What I Had for Breakfast” Anymore by Thomas MacEntee
4:15-5:15 pm, Eleven Layers of Online Searches by Barbara Renick

Friday, February 3
8:30-9:30 am, Exabyte Social Clouds and Other Monstrosities (Keynote Address) by Josh Coates
9:45-10:45 am, Publish Your Genealogy Online by Laura G. Prescott
11:00 am-12:00 pm, Optimize Your Site for Search Engines by Robert Gardner
1:45-2:45 pm, Genealogists “Go Mobile” by Sandra Crowly
3:00-4:00 pm, Google’s Toolbar and Genealogy by Dave Barney

Saturday, February 4
8:30-9:30 am, Making the Most of Technology to Further the Family History Industry (Keynote Address) by Tim Sullivan and Ancestry.com Panel
9:45-10:45 am Genealogy Podcasts and Blogs 101 by Lisa Louise Cooke
11:00 am-12:00 pm, Future of FamilySearch Family Tree by Ron Tanner
1:45-2:45 pm, Privacy in a Collaborative Environment by Noah Tatuk

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Top Song 50 Years Ago; #3

28 January 2012, 8:00 am

The third song to hit the top of the charts in 1962 is “The Duke of Earl” by Gene Chandler. Gene had been the lead singer for the Dukays and recorded the song with them. The group’s record company preferred to release another song and said that Gene could release as a solo artist.

The song was #1 on the Cash Box chart from Jan. 28 to March 3rd. It was the number one song on the Billboard chart from Feb. 11 to March 3rd.

This video is probably from the movie “Don’t Knock the Twist” which was released in 1962 but I am not positive of that source.

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WDYTYA – 3 Feb.

27 January 2012, 8:57 pm

Who Do You Think You Are? returns for a third season on 3 Feb. The person that is being profiled is Martin Sheen. He was born Ramón Antonio Gerard Estévez in the US to immigrant parents. His father was from Spain and his mother was from Ireland. There aren’t any clues on the WDYTYA website at to which side of his family will be traced but a 2 second clip has Martin saying that it is the first time that he has heard the names of his great parents.
I have my DVR already set to record next week’s program. How about you?

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Top Song 50 Years Ago; #2

21 January 2012, 8:00 am

This proves how popular the dance The Twist was fifty years ago. “Peppermint Twist” by Joey Dee and the Starliters hit the top of the Billboard list for the week of Jan, 21-27, 1962 and remained at the top of that list for another two weeks. On the other national record list, Cash Box, the Peppermint Twist only got up to song #2 for the week Jan. 21-27 and then started dropping. The song as originally recorded was considered too long so the record company put the second half on the B side of the record. The video below only includes the first part.

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My Computer Anniversary

17 January 2012, 6:00 pm

Using the Sinclair

I got my first computer about 30 years ago. I really don’t have an exact date but doing some research, I think am fairly correct. My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81 which I ordered via mail order after seeing an ad in Popular Science. It cost $149 and it was about 6.5 inches square and 1.5 inches tall. It connected to a standard B&W TV and used a standard cassette recorder to load programs and save data. It sometimes took 3 or 4 tries to load a program. The Sinclair had just 1kb of memory and a tiny membrane keyboard. Within no time I was ready to upgrade the memory but I had heard there were problems with the 16kb memory pack that Sinclair made. It plugged into the back of the computer but often wobbled and the computer would have to be rebooted. So I bought a 32k memory pack from another vendor that didn’t wobble. Then I added a printer but it only printed on 3 inch wide silver colored paper. The Sinclair computer was manufactured by Timex in Scotland. Very quickly Timex realized that it was selling well so by July 1982 there was a Timex-Sinclair 1000 which was the same as the Sinclair ZX81 except it came with 2kb of memory. The T-S 1000 was sold in department stores and also sold in Wegmans for a while.

Coleco Adam

By 1984 I was ready for a new computer. This time I bought a Coleco Adam. It was a big step up. It came with a tape drive but at the same time I bought an add on floppy drive. It had a full size keyboard and 80kb of memory. The display was a standard color TV. The best and worse part about the computer was the printer. It was a daisy wheel printer that printed some great quality text on regular 8.5X11 paper. But it was so noisy that I had to put on headphones to block the sound. The Adam was made in Amsterdam, NY. Coleco had made a fortune a few years before selling Cabbage Patch Kids dolls but the Adam sold so poorly that made Coleco go broke. That left my Adam an orphan. I realized that my next computer should be an IBM compatible computer. Then if my computer gets outdated I could transfer files to a new computer. Thus my next computer was a Tandy 1000 which was an IBM compatible. I still have some Word processing files that I created on the Tandy. I did have to change the format every few years from WordPerfect, to WordStar to Word documents. I lose track of the computers I have had since then but they were all IBM compatible and each had more memory and each got faster.

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Family Story of a Broadway Performer

16 January 2012, 5:37 pm

Back in the 1960s my grandmother told me that her brother’s wife, Stella, had been on Broadway. Not only that, but that she also knew Jeanette MacDonald and Sydney Greenstreet. I thought that grandma was confused or just plain wrong. Many years later when I entered Stella into my genealogy program, I entered a note that she was MAY have been on Broadway. Last year I found a website called Internet Broadway Database. I put in Stella’s name and was very surprised to find her listed in 2 Broadway shows. Then when I clicked on the name of one of the shows, I found out that both Jeanette MacDonald and Sydney Greenstreet were both in the cast. It turns out that my grandmother’s story was correct. Stella wasn’t the lead in the show. At best she was the third lead but she did really appear on Broadway.

Many months later I decided to do more research on Stella. I looked her up on the Fulton History website. I was really surprised to find many references to her. As it turns out, she was in a travelling show before the Broadway shows and she was referenced in many various newspapers around New York State. The show would appear in Oswego, NY one day, Fulton, NY the next day and then do two shows in Utica the next day. It must have been a gruelling schedule.

Also on Fulton History I found 4 notices of the marriage of Stella and Frank (grandma’s brother). They were married in New York City but the best marriage notice was in the Elmira Telegram. Frank was originally from Hornell, NY and the Elmira newspaper gave him the hometown treatment.

Sometimes old family stories do turn out to be true. More often they turn out to be partially correct. Over time some names get mixed up or locations confused. The only way to tell if your family’s stories are correct is to do a search of the facts.

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Top Song 50 Years Ago; #1

7 January 2012, 8:05 am

The song that was the top song on the charts in Jan. 1962 was “The Twist” by Chubby Checker. You may think that I am mistaken about the year. “The Twist” was first on the top of music charts in Sept. 1960. Then the song returned to the music charts in Jan. ’62 and became the number one song on both the Billboard and Cash Box charts for the week Jan. 7-13, 1962. The song set a record by being the first single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in different years.

“The Twist” was written by Hank Ballard and recorded by his group, “Hank Ballard and The Midnighters” in 1959. It was only a moderate hit for that group.

Below is Chubby Checker on American Bandstand. It is from 1960 (dated by logo on TV camera). Those teenagers in the audience are now an average age of 67!


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