Can't find relatives in the 1940 U.S. Census? Try a FamilySearch search!

This is how I was able to finally find my mother and her parents in it.

No, really. It was that simple.

Tonight I was doing a search for another record on FamilySearch.org (my favorite go-to site, and it's FREE), and noticed that results for the 1940 census were coming up. Really? I thought, I didn't think it was supposed to be indexed by name yet. I hadn't even bothered trying to search by name because I had assumed it wouldn't work.

Just for giggles, I typed in my maternal grandfather's name, and then entered "1940" in the "residence" field, and boom: there were my maternal grandparents and my not-quite-3-year-old mom. My grandfather Henry was only 27, and my grandmother Dorothy was only 21. Just kids themselves, really, though I'm sure people back in the early 20th century grew up faster than they do today.

So if you have relatives you can't find in the 1940 census, do a search for them on FamilySearch.org.

The 1940 U.S. Federal Census is here... well, kind of.

It would just be nice if we could access it.

Apparently the traffic has been much higher than anticipated, and has crashed the National Archives website. I had anticipated the problem of their servers being overwhelmed, so I don't know why The National Archives couldn't.

For me, you can go onto the site and search-- it just won't load any images. Irritatingly, though, the site makes you think that the images will load, because it tells you they're loading.

It lies.

From the above-linked ABC article:

"We are having a server problem," said Susan Cooper, director of public and media communications at the National Archives. "Because there is such a huge volume, they're having a hard time keeping up."

Cooper told ABC News that the website had 22.5 million hits in the first three hours of operation, far more than anticipated.

"We knew we would have high traffic volume, and we thought we were prepared for it," she said, 'but I think we've been very surprised by actually how popular it is."

As irritating as this technological SNAFU is, it indeed goes to show that genealogy is a widespread American interest-- the second or third largest hobby in the country, in fact-- and the folks at the National Archives seem to have underestimated its popularity.

Update on Tuesday, April 3, 2012 by Karen K

Well, I was able to access it very early this morning (I get up at 5 am during the week), found what I needed, and had no problems. Not sure if this is because of the time (the least busy), or because it's fixed...

Question of the week: who will you find in the 1940 census?

That is, who will you be able to locate in the 1940 census before it gets indexed? Before then, you will need to find people by enumeration district-- and to get that information, you will need to know their exact addresses (or at least street names).

Click to read more ...

Just one little problem with the 1940 census

So I had been getting excited about the upcoming release of the 1940 census, which the National Archives will make available for research at 9:00 a.m. on April 2, 2012; this is the first census in which I'll be able to find my parents.

Or maybe not.

You see, this census won't be indexed.

So forget typing in a name and finding the person, the way we spoiled internet genealogists have been used to doing. Until they index the census, which is predicted to take about six months, we will instead have to locate searchees by enumeration district. And it appears that you can only find the right enumeration district if you have a street address.

In other words, unless you know exactly where the person you're looking for was living in April of 1940, good luck.

The NEHGS e-newsletter I received this morning warned of this little challenge, and advises trying to utilize city directories, the 1930 census, and World War II draft cards to try to determine residence locations.

This is good advice, of course, but then it defeats a main purpose of finding your family in the census-- which is to find this information in the first place.

No index? Really, National Archives?

It's not as if you haven't had TEN FLIPPIN' YEARS to prepare for this.

I shouldn't have a problem finding my dad and his parents, only because I know what their address was. However, my mom and her parents and grandparents will be a very different story.

You can search enumeration maps here; just type "1940 census maps" into the search engine, followed by the name of the county (and state, if the name of the county is common). Then click on the name of the one you want, and then the "digital copies" tab.

After having to wait so long, this is a very big disappointment. Might it possibly have something to do with why they're going to make access to this census free?