1940 Census: Just Two Weeks

Family photo showing 1940s styles

In just two weeks the 1940 U.S. census will be released on Monday, April 2, 2012. It seems the excitement is building and the general news media are starting to take note of the big event.

Celebration! The library (Research Center) at WRHS (Western Reserve Historical Society) will be open for the launch of the 1940 U.S. census on Monday, April 2. We'll celebrate and start our research together that day. If you're in the Cleveland area, please come on in.

Societies and groups are gearing up to get volunteers to sign up for indexing under their sponsorship. In Ohio's Cuyahoga County the sponsoring group is NEOCAG which stands for the Northeast Ohio Computer-Aided Genealogy Society. My husband will be indexing the census with them. I've registered under APG, the Association of Professional Genealogists. We've tried out the simulated 1940 census indexing test run. It looks pretty easy. You only need to work on one page of the census at a time. The more of us indexing the faster we'll have a fully searchable 1940 census.

Learn more about indexing at the Getting Started page of the 1940 U.S. Census Community Project. The indexing project is sponsored by Archives.com (who will host the digital images for NARA), FamilySearch.org and Findmypast.com. Society sponsors are NGS, FGS and APG.