Published April 18, 2012 | "Census Excitement" | Maple Ridge Historical Society Family History News, April 2012
On April 2, 2012, NARA released the 1940 United States Federal Census
to the public. Census images will be uploaded and made available on Ancestry.com,
Archives.com, FindMyPast.com, and FamilySearch.org.
This census recorded an important moment in time as it includes people
who survived the Depression and were hearing of the coming of another global
war. Christian Salazar and Randy Hershaft assert in a March 18, 2012 AssociatedPress article that “researchers might be able to follow the movement of
refugees from war-torn Europe in the latter half of the 1930s; sketch out in
more detail where 100,000 Japanese Americans interned during World War II were
living before they were removed; and more fully trace the decades-long
migration of blacks from the rural South to cities.”
The 1940 census included questions about internal migration by asking
where people had been living on April 1, 1935. For people 14 years and older
there were questions about employment status including wages. The census takers
also asked if anyone had participated in the New Deal programs. These questions
are keys to our understanding of how our ancestors managed during the
Depression.
The reality of finding your ancestor in the 1940 census must be
tempered by the massive amount of indexing work that is ahead.
You can, however, speed things up by joining the 1940 U.S. CensusCommunity Project
Next on the horizon is the countdown for the 1921 Canadian census. The
1921 Census was taken on June 1st, which means that it will be in the custody
of Library and Archives Canada on June 1, 2013. They intend to make it
available to researchers online, in the same format as previous censuses, as
soon as possible after that date.
The overall population of Canada in 1921 was 8,788,483 individuals. The
1921 census dropped the questions on "infirmities."
All this exciting census news makes me think again about the loss of
information to future researchers with the scrapping of the long form census.
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