Pitching in
Status, 1940 census indexing
To put that into perspective, there were more than 132 million people recorded in the 1940 census.
Now, math is not my strong suit — my college test scores would have placed me squarely into remedial math class had math been required in my major — but even my meager math skills tell me three-fourths of 132 million is one heck of a lot of indexing.
In fact, Dennis Brimhall, FamilySearch CEO, reported yesterday that:
• 105,522,592 names have been indexed
• 29 states have searchable indexes on FamilySearch.org
• 2 additional states are 100% indexed
• 6 additional states are 75% or more indexed1
And now it’s time to put the pedal to the metal and get the job done, with a Five Million Name Day starting tomorrow, Sunday, July 1 (at least in most of the United States). Yep, FamilySearch wants our help — yours and mine — to index five million names in a single day.
This big 24-hour indexing effort will run for 24 hours, starting at midnight Greenwich Mean Time and going around the July 2 Greenwich Mean Time clock. For those of us who don’t set our clocks by Greenwich Mean Time, the U.S. start times — all Sunday, July 1 — are:
• 1 p.m., Hawaii Standard Time
• 4 p.m., Alaska Daylight Time
• 5 p.m., Pacific Daylight Time
• 6 p.m., Mountain Daylight Time
• 7 p.m., Central Daylight Time
• 8 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time and
• 9 p.m., Atlantic Daylight Time
If you haven’t done any indexing before, it’s easy. There’s a guide to downloading the indexing software and getting started here and you can download the directions in PDF here.
So why is The Legal Genealogist writing about this on a Saturday, a day I usually reserve for writing about my family?
Because this is about my family … and yours … and everybody else’s.
I still have a ton of relatives I simply haven’t had a chance to find in the 1940 census using the available tools (find the 1930 census enumeration district (ED) number, convert it to the 1940 ED number, go page by page through the 1940 ED and hope they didn’t move between 1930 and 1940).
Yes, I’ve found my father and his parents in 1940 Chicago.2 But all the rest of my father’s family was also in Illinois, probably in Chicago. Where were Paul and Hattie Knop? Paul and Elly Froemke? Or Tante Anna, my grandfather’s aunt? Were my father’s cousins Alfred and Willy Benschura already in California or were they still in Illinois? Illinois — whine — is only 48% indexed and Chicago is one big city! So I have a vested interest in getting Illinois finished.
And, yes, I’ve found my mother and her parents in 1940 Midland County, Texas.3 But where was my Uncle Billy in the 1940 census? He wasn’t at home with his parents — was he already in Navy boot camp and recorded there? What about my mother’s cousin Myrtle? Was she still in Texas as a new mother or…? Not to mention the facts that my grandmother had three living brothers and my grandfather had five living brothers and sisters in 1940 — many of them in Texas. And — whine — Texas is only 60% indexed and — sigh — it’s one big state! So I have a vested interest in getting Texas finished, too.
So I know what I’m going to be doing come 8 p.m. EDT tomorrow. I’m going to be pitching in for Five Million Names. Me, personally, I’m going to add my indexing efforts to those focusing on getting Illinois and Texas finished. Come join me!
And, by the way, if by chance your states of interest are already fully indexed, you don’t have to work on the census index. There are tons of other indexing projects involving all kinds of records in nearly every U.S. state and many countries around the world.
Or you could pitch in and help out in Illinois and Texas.
I’d be personally very grateful if you did.
SOURCES
- Dennis Brimhall, “CEO Corner: Volunteers and the 1940 Census Effort,” posted 29 Jun 2012, FamilySearch Blog (https://familysearch.org/blog : accessed 29 Jun 2012). ↩
- 1940 U.S. census, Cook County, Illinois, Chicago Ward 13, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 103-867, page 1,429(B) (stamped), sheet 61(B), household 52, Hugo Geissler household; digital image, Archives.gov (http://1940census.archives.gov : accessed 29 Jun 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T627, roll 947. ↩
- 1940 U.S. census, Midland County, Texas, Midland City, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 165-3A, page (illegible)(B) (stamped), sheet 7(B), household 161, Clay R. Cottrell household; digital image, Archives.gov (http://1940census.archives.gov : accessed 6 Apr 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T627, roll 4105. ↩
Great article. Now I know exactly when to get started. I have switched to Illinois after doing twenty-eight other states. Close to reaching 15,000 records. By Monday evening I will be indexed tired. Just a month to go and the 1940 Census should be finished.
And those of us with Illinois relatives thank you!!
Okey dokey, that answers my question of which favorite state to work on…ILLINOIS of course, and maybe Texas for a break now and then! Hey, we GOT this! Illinois is going DOWN! Totally searchable by Monday. I just know it!
SMOOOOOCH! Thanks, Lisa! (Can you tell I really want Illinois finished???)
Hey…and my friend Gail, who is not a full-fledged, hopelessly-addicted genealogist, just registered to start indexing by following my link to your post and following your links to register! How cool is that?
As cool as can be! Welcome, Gail! Oh boy… this is gonna be amazing.
Sorry! I’m going to be helping to finish Pennsylvania. But if I can’t download from there, I’ll try Illinois.
Suzie
Fair enough! And if we finish Illinois and Texas, I’ll try to help with Pennsylvania! (Trying to figure out if sleep and work time can be done away with during this 24 hour period…)
Thanks for posting the times around the US. I couldn’t (didn’t want to) figure out what the heck all those times were!
You’re welcome. I don’t think in GMT any more than I think in metric, so I was very glad FamilySearch gave us a cheat sheet!
So your cousin is late to seeing this. You know, the one NOT on the side with interests in Illinois! Hmmph! Everybody had to say they’d join Illinois, not Texas!
(She says, jokingly, as she actually has some separate interests in Illinois, too.)
Chipping in on ANY state is greatly appreciated, indeed. Even those efforts already exerted towards the indexes for Mississippi, which answer one of your pondered questions above…
-P
Hey, I indexed Texas! I even indexed in Parker County! (Long after we had anybody there, but hey!) And the Haags in Mississippi! Who woulda thunk it? I figured Louisiana, if not Texas Cool find!.
Someone at FS is playing a mean practical joke on me, hiding all of the “good” counties from me. “Ssshhh, here she comes…. she’s at the end of Buncombe? OK, give ‘er Cabarrus! Wait – tease her with a couple of pages from Burke, but give her pages from the mental hospital!!”
I was so sure the Haags would be in LA, too. After that search and before my eventual realization that I did not have to restrict my searches by state, however, I consulted some brilliant legal genealogists’s family tree website and saw III’s obit, listing his birthplace as Jackson, MS.
I confess I thought someone was trying to tell me something when the first indexing batch I got was a prison and the second a mental hospital…