02 April 2012

You can now browse the 1940 U.S. census

The database was just made public today at the National Archives.  At this time there is no search function by name, but thousands of people began combing through the material today, so lots of genealogy enthusiasts and websites will be adding information to their files.

2 comments:

  1. As of noon today this information is (for all intents and purposes) still inaccessible. Servers are crashing, website pages are not loading, etc. The National Archives had anticipated server overload, but apparently not of this magnitude. Even knowing enumeration districts ahead of time is not helping. We waited 10 years so far, I guess what's a few more hours (days?) (months?)

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  2. Fascinating! I looked up my grandparents and in 1940 my dad had not yet turned 2 (aww!). My granddad made $3300 in 1939, pretty good gravy (seems like sales can be pretty decent work in any era). To pick out some data points from the street they lived on: The judge on the supreme court of their state was the top earner at $5000, the cabbie around the corner clocked in at $800. Lots of folks were unemployed, like the CPA and the politician (democrat). The grade school teacher made $1100, same as the stenographer. The college professors by contrast made $3800 and $4800. The mail handler earned $1290, but the mail carrier made $1900. The railroad conductor made $3000 and had the coolest job of all. Thanks for the link!

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