This prints out at 5 pages and if you are not interested in the 1930
census, just delete this message. But it appears that NC, WVA and VA
will be among those with Soundex indexing, so we are fortunate. I don't
subscribe to
ancestry.com myself, but my local public library has a
subscription that enables me to access some of the databases (census, but
not scanned images). Sometimes the LDS is most convenient and I am sure
the Mormons will be getting a CD on the 1930 census eventually. I have
been told that there are other subscriber-paid indexing planned, and even
that a free but partial listing will be on
www.us-census.org perhaps. Of
course, the National Archives will have it but probably be over-run for
years after April lst.
Betty Pace
--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Betty A. Pace" <bapace2(a)juno.com>
To: bapace2(a)juno.com
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 07:28:13 +0000
Subject: 1930 Census -
Ancestry.com
Message-ID: <20020224.073738.-4058935.2.bapace2(a)juno.com>
THE 1930 CENSUS AT
ANCESTRY.COM
===================================================================
As genealogists count down the days until the 1 April 2002 release of
the 1930 U.S. Federal Census by the National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA),
Ancestry.com is getting in gear to begin
posting the images online as quickly as possible.
Ancestry.com will be obtaining copies of the microfilm as soon as
they are released and will rush the films back to Utah where they
will be scanned twenty hours a day/six days a week on state-of-the-
art scanners until the project's completion. Images will be posted as
soon as they become available and the first images will be available
to
Ancestry.com Census subscribers within weeks after the release!
As they are being scanned, trained and experienced data entry
operators will be standing by, waiting to begin the massive indexing
project as soon as images become available, in order to help family
historians to more easily locate their ancestors in this very
valuable census. These indexes should go up within a few months as
well.
In addition,
Ancestry.com is already working to make available
several finding aids on its Web site. Both maps and descriptions of
enumeration districts (both of which are described in more detail in
the following article) will soon be available at
Ancestry.com so that
family historians can dive right into this historic enumeration as
soon as it becomes available. Stay tuned to the "Ancestry Daily News"
for more on these upcoming release dates.
To subscribe to Ancestry.com's Census Subscription, which includes
the one-of-a-kind 1890 Census Substitute, go to:
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/signup.htm
FOR A PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE, e-mail it to a
friend, or submit your feedback on it, just go to:
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir.asp?sourceid=1644&key=A529901
and click on the appropriate icon in the beige sidebar.
===================================================================
"LOCATING ANCESTORS IN THE 1930 CENSUS," by Megan Smolenyak
===================================================================
Many of us are anxiously anticipating the 1 April 2002 release of the
1930 Federal Population Census by the National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA). By law, census records are restricted for
seventy-two years for privacy reasons, but the wait is almost over.
Since the census day in 1930 was 1 April, that is the day that two
thousand, six hundred and sixty-seven microfilmed rolls of population
schedules will be released for public access at the National Archives
in Washington, D.C. and thirteen regional branches, this year.
So all of us can rush right out and find our families in the 1930
census, right? Not quite. We've become accustomed from most of the
earlier census records to using the Soundex finding aid. This
personal name indexing tool makes it relatively easy for us to pluck
our ancestors out of the millions of names in a given census, and
those of us whose kin resided in twelve southern states will still
have this luxury for the 1930 census. To be more specific, indexes
using the Soundex exist for the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida,
Georgia, Kentucky (part), Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia (part).
The rest of us are not so lucky. We're going to have to muddle
through without any Soundex. That might not be too much of an
obstacle if your family hails from a sparsely populated, rural area,
but what about those of us whose families lived in major urban areas
such as New York or Chicago?
Fortunately, the National Archives has already thought of this and
made some finding aids available (see
http://merrimack.nara.gov/genealogy/1930cen.html for details). The
more you know about the family you're seeking, the more useful these
tools will be. At a bare minimum, you'll want to know the names
involved and the state and county in which they lived. To improve
your chances, you'll want to learn their exact address in 1930. If
you were around in 1930, you can be your own source for this
information, but how can you learn this if you're a more recent
model? Here are a few suggestions:
--- TALK TO YOUR OLDER RELATIVES. Chances are you have relatives who
were either alive in 1930 or who know where their parents were living
at that time. Ask them!
--- LOOK THROUGH FAMILY PAPERS. Maybe personal items such as letters,
postcards, and photos or official documents such as deeds or vital
records will reveal the desired address.
--- NOTE WHERE THEY LIVED IN THE 1920 CENSUS. Just maybe you'll get
lucky and they'll have stayed in the same place.
--- SEARCH CITY DIRECTORIES. Perhaps one of the most underutilized
resources, these can tell you exactly where your family was living in
1930. Recognizing this, NARA has posted a list of city directories
they've made available at regional branches at:
http://merrimack.nara.gov/genealogy/citydirs.html
Additional assistance can be found at:
http://www.cyndislist.com/citydir.htm and many major libraries have
city directories for their area or state.
So now you've found the street address. What next? You'll need to
find out which enumeration district (ED) contained the address to
narrow your search. This will enable you to, for instance, search
just one neighborhood in Pittsburgh, rather than the whole city.
Once again, NARA has anticipated this need and made several important
finding aids available:
--- Enumeration district maps numbering eight thousand three hundred
and forty-five sheets spanning thirty-six rolls have been reproduced
as NARA microfilm publication "M1930, Enumeration District Maps for
the Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930."
--- Geographic descriptions of enumeration districts are provided in
NARA microfilm publication "T1224, Descriptions of Census Enumeration
Districts, 1830-1950." Descriptions of enumeration districts for the
1930 census are arranged by state, then by county, on rolls sixty-one
through ninety. Details are available on the NARA Web site mentioned
earlier.
--- The seven rolls of NARA microfilm publication "M1931, Index to
Selected City Streets and Enumeration Districts, 1930 Census" contain
address indexes to help you convert addresses into EDs for more than
fifty largest cities, although it's not clear how the cities were
selected. For example, Kansas City, KS is included, but he much
larger Kansas City, MO is not. (The list of cities included in this
publication is at:
http://www.nara.gov/genealogy/1930census_city_streets.html) More on
this shortly.
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. It does so by taking you through a
straightforward query process. When you first go to the page, a
single field will appear asking you to select a state from a drop-
down menu. It then takes you through a series of additional
questions. For example, I conducted a search with the following
specifications:
State: NJ
City: Jersey City
Street: Bright St.
House number: 136 (map)
Cross street: Varick (map)
Cross street: Monmouth
Result: ED 41
So now I can focus my search for my great-grandparents in just one
ED. If I had stopped at just the first street, my search would have
been narrowed to six EDs, but adding others helped me zero in even
more.
How did I know these cross streets? I didn't. Entering the house
number activated a mapping function incorporated into the site. From
the current-day map that opened, I could then identify nearby
streets. Entering one of these brought my choice down to two EDs.
Consulting the map, which the intersection of these two streets
generated, I selected one more that formed part of the closed city
block that interested me. This last entry whittled the field down to
a single ED.
If there is an already existing resource for the address you seek,
you might be informed of this at some point in the process. For
instance, if you select one of the twelve states that were Soundexed,
you'll be reminded of this fact. If you select a city that is
contained in the address index microfilm series, you'll be directed
to the exact roll that contains your city of interest (incidentally,
FAQ No.10 contains a list of cities in this series). And if you
specify a city that's not covered in this site (since it's a purely
volunteer effort, they drew the line at cities with populations below
eighty thousand, although they invite volunteers to contribute the
necessary data to add other cities), it will point you to the exact
roll in the above-referenced ED geographic description finding aid
you'll need to continue your research. For those of us with roots in
Wilkes-Barre, PA, Sacramento, CA, or any of one hundred other large
cities, this tool arrived on the scene just in time!
___________________________________________________________________
Megan Smolenyak, author of "In Search of Our Ancestors," companion
book to the 2000 PBS "Ancestors" series, and the forthcoming
"Honoring Our Ancestors: Inspiring Stories of the Quest for Our
Roots," can be reached through
http://www.honoringourancestors.com
FOR A PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE, e-mail it to a
friend, or submit your feedback on it, just go to:
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir.asp?sourceid=1644&key=A529701
and click on the appropriate icon in the beige sidebar.