Free Access to 1930s - 1940s USA Ancestry records

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Currie
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Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:20 am
Location: Australia

Free Access to 1930s - 1940s USA Ancestry records

Post by Currie » Tue Apr 03, 2012 3:24 pm

Free Access to USA 1930s to 1940s Ancestry records.
http://www.ancestry.com/1940-census?o_x ... _sch=Email

And that looks like Rosie the Riveter in the middle.

I haven’t had time to figure this out, but it looks good. You can access the 1930 USA census, and browse the images for the 1940 USA census, or at least what has been put online so far. So if you find the whereabouts of your relative in 1930 you would have a reasonable chance of finding their 1940 census image.

Just think, you’ll have to wait till you’re 30 years older before you can access the 1941 UK census, and then find that there wasn’t one.

Hope you can figure it out, ends on April 10.

Alan

LATER: If Ancestry doesn't have the 1940 image posted yet there are alternatives.
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_ge ... mages.html

SarahND
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Location: France

Re: Free Access to 1930s - 1940s USA Ancestry records

Post by SarahND » Tue Apr 03, 2012 9:08 pm

Hi Alan,
And here is a good site for figuring out the Enumeration District that your people would be in... saves some time, especially in a largish city:

http://stevemorse.org/census/unified.html

Since the index won't be ready for a number of months, you'll have to wade through many pages before finding the correct street address anyway. So far I have found that Ancestry has the most states uploaded and also the fastest image viewing time. The Archives site has all the images, theoretically, but they severely underestimated the demand and their site has ground to a halt. I haven't been able to see a single page there yet-- just a lot of error messages and spinning icons :?

Good luck to all,
Sarah

trish1
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Location: australia

Re: Free Access to 1930s - 1940s USA Ancestry records

Post by trish1 » Wed Apr 04, 2012 7:48 am

Hi Sarah & Alan

It seems that nobody realises the demand for genealogy data. I started my research at about the time the 1901 England/Wales census died online - I think it was some months - if not longer - before it was easily available.

I have only a few family in the US. I might wait for the index. My hit rate to find addresses on a census is seriously terrible

Trish

Currie
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Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:20 am
Location: Australia

Re: Free Access to 1930s - 1940s USA Ancestry records

Post by Currie » Wed Apr 04, 2012 11:21 am

Thanks Sarah & hello Trish.

I vaguely remembered there was a site like that but would never have found it. I’ll give it a try.

All the best,
Alan

SarahND
Site Admin
Posts: 5639
Joined: Thu Apr 27, 2006 12:47 am
Location: France

Re: Free Access to 1930s - 1940s USA Ancestry records

Post by SarahND » Wed Apr 04, 2012 2:35 pm

Hi Trish and Alan,
The good news is that the whole thing has been so high profile here (number one hit on google on Monday with some 22.5 million hits in three hours, articles in all the major newspapers, etc.). In a time when archives and libraries are having their hours and staff drastically cut, it is good to send the message that there are millions of taxpayers and voters who want access to genealogical data. Let's hope someone listens!

Steve Morse has developed many very useful search tools for genealogy and his entire website is worth a close look:
http://stevemorse.org/index.html

Back to slogging through the images...
Sarah