In just 23 days, the 1940 Census will be released to the public! Those of us in the genealogy community have counted down the years, then months, and now days for this event. I can imagine we'll all get plenty of rest on the on the night of April 1st, so that we can be at the ready at 9:00 a.m. the next morning, when the long awaited documents are released. (Or, on the other hand, some might stay up all night in anticipation!)
When FamilySearch first announced it's partnership with the National Archives to release the 1940 Census, and open it up to indexers, I signed up right away. I was already a registered indexer for FamilySearch at the time, but this was going to be a special project, which I just had to be a part of. But now, I've made an even greater commitment to the work that will be involved in bringing easier access to the to the public because a few weeks ago, I signed up to be a 1940 Census "Blogger Ambassador".
Being a Blogger Ambassador means that I will write about my experiences using the 1940 Census, and I will share how the it effects my research. That 's all that's required, and I would have been doing that, anyway, so I figured, "Why not be an ambassador?" :)
There is so much excitement being generated about this census. Personally, I'm impressed by the amount of information that the enumerators were required to gather. Also, I think it's great that we'll get to see who actually provided the information (for the first time), which could help us to infer the probable validity of much of it. We'll also get information about where families lived 5 years prior to the census date, educational levels obtained, and more! You can click here to see detailed questions and enumerator instructions for the 1940 Census.
I look forward to sharing the journey of exploring this census with all of my readers. If you haven't already, please consider signing up to help with the indexing. It as easy as visiting the official 1940 Census site and signing up by giving just your email address and your name. You even get to pick the state(s) that you are most interesteing working on! The more hands "on deck", the sooner we'll have a fully searchable digital index to go with these precious documents!
Renate
A census-taker interviews a woman for the 1940 Census
(picture courtesy of census.gov)
https://the1940census.com/
https://the1940census.com/
Pretty exciting! Wonder if all those 10 kids in the photo are hers.
ReplyDeleteNice post and Congratulations on being one of the Ambassadors for the 1940 Census. I signed up for the indexing last week, and have been steadily getting my hands or should I say fingers into the process of indexing.
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