1940 Federal Population Schedule The 1940 census will be available online April 2, 2012. It will be available on the following websites: 1) www.1940census.archives.gov 2) www.ancestry.com 3) www.familysearch.org

There will be no name index when it is released on April 2, at 9:00 a.m. In order to locate someone, you will need to know his or her address and the Census enumeration district in which that address was located.

What makes this census unique? The 1940 census includes several standard pieces of information, such as name, age, gender, race, education, and place of birth. But this census also introduced some new questions that provide more in-depth information:

1) Where individuals lived 5 years before the census (i.e. 1935) 2) The highest educational grade achieved

3) More details regarding income and occupation 4) Which family member provided the census information

Partial Census Sheet

Residency

Employment

Occupation & Income

Supplemental Schedule The 1940 census also has a supplemental schedule for two names on each page (the persons enumerated on lines 14 and 29), for whom additional information is provided:

• The place of birth of the person's father and mother • The person's usual occupation, not just what they were doing the week of March 24-30, 1940 • For all women who are or have been married, has she been married more than once and her age at the time of her first marriage.

How can I find someone in the 1940 census?

The procedure for finding addresses using enumeration district numbers is basically the same for all federal censuses. The 1930 U.S federal census will be used to demonstrate how this can be done.

First, you will need to get the address for the household you are looking for.

Here are some suggestions: 1) Telephone/City Directories - New York Public Library (New York Public Library is aiming to have 1940 New York City telephone books online by April 2). - New York State Library (Has a collection of New York State telephone/city directories. These will not be available online). 2) Personal papers: receipts, letters, military papers, etc. 3) Information obtained from relatives

World War II Draft Registration Cards (Old Man’s Draft) Available on Ancestry.com

This record gives a person’s address in 1942.

When you have an address, you then need to find out the Enumeration District (E.D.) number.

Ward’s Island Example

A person was unable to find an ancestor in the Ancestry.com 1930 census name index. She was sure that the relative lived and worked on Ward’s Island in 1930.

Steps taken in finding Ward’s Island in the census We use the webpage www.stevemorse.org to figure out the enumeration district for Ward’s Island.

http://stevemorse.org/

Click on the ED finder link for large cities

Selected 1930 in the drop down menu.

Select the area

Ward’s Island ED in the 1930 census was 31-842. The ED number will not be the same for other years.

Locating the Enumeration District in the Census After you know the ED number, look for that ED in the census. (Demonstrated here by using the census on Ancestry.com) Next to Ancestry’s name index for the 1930 census, there is a “browse this collection” option. This will let you browse bySelect Enumeration browse District.

Browsing Ancestry’s Census Listings

Choose state, county, township, and enumeration district

When in an enumeration district, forward the pages by using the arrow button or type in an image number. Enumeration districts, especially for Manhattan, can contain many pages. This 34-842 district contains 157 pages.

Here is a more complicated example Looking for Bernard Malamud who in 1930 lived at 1111 Gravesend Avenue, Brooklyn.

Stephenmorse.org

Clicking on each ED box, will give you a listing of the streets it contains.

These are links not to ED maps but to current street maps. Even though they are contemporary maps, they can still be helpful in finding out cross-streets and intersections.

enumeration district 24-1346 contains these streets

If your street name changed, stephenmorse.org has a list of name changes.

This shows that Gravesend Avenue is now McDonald. This is good to know if you are trying to locate the street on current day maps. However, you do not need to know the new name when looking for it in the census

24-1346 All ED numbers for Kings County in 1930 begin with 24. You would look for 1346 in the drop down menu.

You would now page through looking at the address on the side of the pages.

Here is the Malamud family living at 1111 Gravesend Avenue

Locating ED Numbers Using Maps.

ED maps can also aid in figuring out the correct enumeration district.

The 1940 ED maps on the National Archives website: www.archives.gov/research/search The 1930 ED maps are only available on microfilm.

Other Links to the 1940 ED maps

New York enumeration district map http://research.archives.gov/description/5835686 Suffolk County enumeration district map http://research.archives.gov/description/5835823 www.stephenmorse.org also has links to enumeration maps.

1940 Enumeration Map for Town of Islip

According to the map, Ocean Avenue in Bohemia would be ED 52-133

The Steps in Summary

1) Find out the address of the person or family. 2) Figure out the ED number by either of the following: - Use www.stephenmorse.org - Look at an ED map.

3) Locate the ED in the census. 4) Browse through the ED, looking for the correct address.