Matt Carman has given me permission to post this -
According to sources familiar with the National Archives and Records
Administration, the 1930 US Census scheduled for release sometime in the year
2002, after the 72 year restriction on public access, is only partially
indexed in Soundex format. The indexing of the census was a Works Projects
Administration (WPA) project to employ people during the depression years of
the 1930's. The census index project started with the southern states and was
only able to complete indexes for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia plus
seven counties in Kentucky and seven counties in West Virginia before it was
stopped by labor demands for World War II projects.
So if you were looking for an easy search for missing persons in the 1930
census be prepared to do some page by page searching unless you are lucky
enough to have persons in one of the few indexed states.
For more information about the 1930 and later census indexes, queries can be
sent to inquire(a)nara.gov