Have you looked at the 1940 Census? The first day (Monday) was almost impossible – too many people trying to see, to the point where the servers were overwhelmed. The second day was pretty much the same for me, but there were a number of notices of different places getting the images online and so the traffic seemed to ease. (If you’d like to see more on that, NARA and Archives.org put together a great little graphic that you can see by clicking the left hand graphic or here.) Today, I finally managed to peek online and within just a few minutes, found my mother’s family! It helps that they lived in a smallish town, and I had a pretty good idea where to look – there were only two enumeration districts to choose from, as well.

Fun things I learned: they rented their house for $26 a month, and my grandfather was making $5000 a year. Five years previously, they were living in Beaumont, Texas. I never knew they had lived there, and my mother was too young to have remembered it. So I picked up many small details just from the single opportunity I had to check them out.

If you’re interested in indexing, so that you don’t have to read through page after page of images, you can do that too! Officially known as the “1940 Census Community Project” you go to the site, read all about it, then if you’re still interested, download the software to your computer. (Sorry, tablets and cell phones won’t work.) Family Search says that online volunteers completed the indexing for the state of Delaware in the first 24 hours! But don’t think there’s not plenty still to do – next up are Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Virginia. And there are other indexing projects that were going on before the census, including WWI Draft Registration Cards. So there’s plenty of work to go around. Join us – and have a great time!

Tags: 1940 census, Census project, family research, volunteer

A lot of this and that will go into this post. Catching up with a lot of things at once, so here goes.

Recent research has centered on getting a connection to pre-1687 in Virginia established for a lady who is attempting to get into one of the lineage organizations. Some fairly strict requirements is leading to not only indirect proof, but also a fairly lengthy analysis of the documentation to provide the proper information. As she is the last of her maiden-name line, this is pretty important to her, and I’ve been really working hard trying to accumulate every scrap of information documented and accounted for.

Another project that’s taken time recently is being asked to present a workshop to a group of about 50 people in two weeks. While giving the workshop is something I’ve done before, this group has had me attending meetings prior to the workshop and going over the information I plan on presenting, then asking for specific information to be included, and deeming other information unnecessary. It’s a strange feeling: almost as if they want to give the workshop, and just have someone else actually lead it. I’ll try to keep you posted on how it works out.

And in the middle of all this, the state conference for the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) took place, which was just about a week away from home. And while I don’t get any genealogy work actually done while I’m there, I do get to visit with others who research, and we are able to swap information and updates. Sometimes you just need to spend time with friends, and my DAR friends are some of the best.

Lastly, I hope by now everyone’s heard that the 1940 United States census is available. But… it’s not indexed yet. So we’re back to scanning images manually until it can be indexed. You’ll need to know about where the family lived so you can search geographically. There are maps that outline the enumeration districts for the census already online. (Yes, it is being indexed, but it will probably be months before there’s easy lookups.) If you’d like to be an indexer – and possibly find someone in your family! – you can sign up at https://the1940census.com/

Tags: 1940 census, DAR, family research, Virginia colony, workshop

This week on 52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy: Week 7 – Historical Documents: Which historical document in your possession are you happy to have? How did you acquire this item? What does it reveal about your ancestors?

My family had a LOT of genealogy done before I ever came along. But I’ve always been fascinated by my grandfather Osborne who died 14 months before I was born. The little bit I knew was that he had been a cadet at the U.S. Naval Academy, his nickname was “Oiseau” (“bird” in French), he retired from the Navy early, was called back into service for WWII, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He was born in 1888 and died in 1956, and his wife was sixteen years his junior. She lived until 1988, but because of divorce, I really didn’t know that side of my family at all while growing up.

Eventually through genealogical research, I pieced together a much more detailed look at my grandfather:  After graduation, he actually taught English, French, Latin and History for two years at his high school before attending the Naval Academy (he was appointed 3 August 1907 from Virginia) where he lettered in baseball, and accumulated demerits for smoking in his room. He started his naval service in 1912, and I have the complete list of ships he served on. From the 1930 census I learned they lived in San Diego where he was stationed, and you can still see the house they rented. In 1948 he was an alternate delegate to Democratic National Convention from Virginia.

Much of this came from a copy of his official military record, which actually begins with his education at the Naval Academy. It’s huge – two inches thick – and took a bit of prodding to get. The first time we requested the information, the envelope was only a few pages, and only documented his service during WWII, when he was recalled. So we wrote back, and explained that we knew he had been a cadet, and served on board, and mailed our letter. Six weeks later came the full report in two separate envelopes. It’s detailed – demerits at the Academy, time spent in the hospital, requests for leave, it’s ALL in this pair of envelopes! It took a while to get it all sorted into chronological order, but really worth it!

Why is this so valuable to me? I never knew my grandfather, but this has certainly given me lots of information and insight into his life! Genealogical details abound.

Tags: DD214, family research, military personnel records, military records, my family, Osborne, service records, SS-180