I'm sure you have all heard that Soundex is only available for a few
Southern states in the 1930 US Census. So, to narrow down the search, we
will need to find our city ancestors and other relatives in old city
directories and such. Once the street address is found, step 2 is
locating the "E.D." - Enumeration District.
In today's Ancestry Daily News, I found mention of an interesting site,
in an article my Megan Smolenyak. The entire article is available here:
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir.asp?sourceid=831&key=A529701
ONLINE FINDING AID
Those of us with big city roots should all be grateful to Stephen P.
Morse, Joel D. Weintraub, and David R. Kehs for the tool they've just
launched at:
http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/census/
Building on data transcribed by Weintraub, this site is called
"Obtaining EDs for the 1930 Census in One Step (Large Cities)" and
that's exactly what it helps you do for a number of major cities that
weren't indexed in the M1931 microfilm series mentioned above. So now
if your family resided in Jersey City or one of about one hundred
other cities, your research just became a lot easier.
Researchers with Ellis Island ancestors are already familiar with
Morse's one-step tool to help search the Ellis Island database
(
http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/ellis/ellis.html), and luckily for
us, he's at it again. As with his other tools, I strongly recommend
that you read his Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), which will help
you understand how to get the most from this site as well as what its
limitations are. You'll also get a quick education in the 1930
census.
Essentially, the site helps you determine the ED or EDs in which a
given street was recorded.
<snip>
There is more good information about the release of the 1930 Census, and
finding aids that will be available, at NARA:
http://merrimack.nara.gov/genealogy/1930cen.html