1940 Photos of a First House

With the 1940 U.S. census now only 13 days away, I'm thinking more about that time. It was an important year in my family as the first time my parents owned their own home. I believe these pictures of my parents and sister were most likely just before the census was taken on April 1st. I know when I see them in that census I can envision them as they were here. This is where we lived when I was born some years later and until I was three. Be sure to click on the image to see it larger.

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Designer Credits:
52 Inspirations {2012} by Sue Cummings Week 3
plus dotted paper and butterfly from Week 1
fonts: Blue Highway D Type, Minya Nouvelle

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.

Name Game: Eckles

I am still obsessed with research on my Eckles family. While thinking about explaining bits of it to another I remembered that I've come up with a Chinese restaurant menu for spelling variations. Check it out!

A name might begin with the more common E, but a first letter of A is often written. The next segment in my family is ck but cc is very common too. A lone k or even c might appear. When it is spelled with a ch it may be of German origin rather than Scots-Irish. Segment three is usually either le or el, but could be ol. Last the name usually ends in an s but is sometimes omitted. So I see this as a case of pick one from each column to arrive at a possible spelling. With the exception of ending in s, or not, the variations would be covered by Soundex if you do both A and E initial letters. The codes would be E242 or A242 with a final s or E240 and A240 without. This certainly would be a good case for Soundex.