The Cellar - View Single Post - Yet more keen links one might want to share

glatt · 05-23-2012, 10:52 AM

The 1940 US Census records are now public. Have been for a couple weeks.

I know people who were alive back then. It's fun to see the records of your parents when they were babies.

Finding the records is a challenge. You have to go the the government
archives site and look at the maps for that year to see what
enumeration district the home was in, and then look up the census
schedule for that enumeration district and read through the census schedule to find their entry. But once you find it, you can just read down the list to see the neighbors'
entries too.

I found that my grandfather was the wealthiest guy on his street. His neighbors were mostly farmers, and he was an engineer who built roads. One thing that I found amazing was that his annual income was about the same as the value of his house. My income is about one eighth the value of our house. Housing costs were different back then.

05-23-2012, 10:52 AM	#10
glatt ™ Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Arlington, VA Posts: 27,717	The 1940 US Census records are now public. Have been for a couple weeks. I know people who were alive back then. It's fun to see the records of your parents when they were babies. Finding the records is a challenge. You have to go the the government archives site and look at the maps for that year to see what enumeration district the home was in, and then look up the census schedule for that enumeration district and read through the census schedule to find their entry. But once you find it, you can just read down the list to see the neighbors' entries too. I found that my grandfather was the wealthiest guy on his street. His neighbors were mostly farmers, and he was an engineer who built roads. One thing that I found amazing was that his annual income was about the same as the value of his house. My income is about one eighth the value of our house. Housing costs were different back then.