1940 Census Research—Womble Style

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you know that earlier this month the 1940 census was released.  It’s available for free digitally from the National Archives site at http://1940census.archives.gov/.  There are other sites such as FamilySearch.org that have the images available for free and these are being indexed as this post is being written.  11 states are almost completely indexed.  Delaware is the only state in the union that’s been completely indexed thus far.  Other sites have the images available and are working hard to get them indexed so that they can be more easily searchable.

The first week that the 1940 census was released I joined millions of others by jumping into the fray to seek out my ancestors, some of who are still living and listed in this newly released census.

My first stop was Knoxville, Tennessee where I searched for my father’s family.  To prepare for this census release, back in 2003 I asked my uncle (my grandmother’s youngest son) the family’s addresses during the years that they lived in K-ville.  He was able to give me what he believed to be the exact time periods and addresses for a couple of places.  In other instances, he was only able to give just the street name.

On one visit to Knoxville my father took me around to the houses and sites of the various houses where he and his family had lived and I took pictures. 

When the census was released I believed that I was completely set and that finding them would be a research slam-dunk.  Oh how wrong I was!  This is a lesson in how the best-laid plans don’t always pan out.  Always have a list of possible places when in this situation, just in case.  To start with, I only searched for them by street address and didn’t bother trying to find them using their last name.  After not finding the family at the address I was so sure of, I looked them up in the 1940 city directory.  The 1940 directory gave the address I had tried to locate them at in the census, but they weren’t there.  I looked for the family at another address my uncle had given me, but was also unsuccessful.

I considered just waiting for the state of Tennessee to be indexed by someone, but then decided to go back to the drawing board and reviewed the emails from my uncle when I asked about where he lived in K-ville.

Albert Womble-1940 Paducah, Kentucky

In the meantime, I located my grandmother’s father living in Paducah, Kentucky and my grandfather’s parents in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

My uncle’s emails mentioned the street Magnolia as one of the streets where they lived.  However, he didn’t know the house number.  Also, during that house tour with my father in Knoxville, he said he didn’t know where the house was either.  Today, he believes that it’s where a Taco Bell now stands.

Since I didn’t know the exact address of the Magnolia house, I searched the images for their last name.  I searched through some of the EDs that had Magnolia in them.  Then, I remember one interesting detail about his family.  For some reason during my search for them I noticed that the family moved within the same ED.  After searching through several EDs without any luck, I decided to test my theory and it paid off.  Sure enough, I found them in the same ED where I had found their other houses.  Because some of the people listed in this image are still living, I won’t post the image.

Ernest Womble-1940 Noble County, Indiana

Since locating my father’s family in the 1940 census, I’ve since gone on to look up other ancestors and having some success and some disappointment.  I easily located Albert Womble, my great grandfather’s brother living in Noble County, Indiana.  It took some work, but I was also able to find Albert’s son Ben in the census as well.  As of this writing, I’ve not been able to locate Albert’s youngest son, Paul who I believe was living in Paducah or at least within McCracken County, Kentucky.  I may have to wait ‘til the census is completely indexed before finding him.  Next on my list for 1940 census findings is locating Thomas Jefferson Womble, Albert’s brother.  I believe that he may have been living in San Bernardino, California and perhaps was at the state hospital there, so he may be an easy one to find, or perhaps he’ll be one of the elusive ancestors that are frequently encountered in genealogy. 

Electrical Problems Solved!

When I installed the tiled bathroom floor back in November, I took that opportunity to check over my dollhouse to see if there were any repairs that needed to be done.

That’s when I noticed a lighting issue on the 1^st floor of the house.  This dollhouse is electrified using round wire.  The previous month I’d received an email from my favorite local miniatures store saying that they were closing their doors at the end of 2011 and knew it was time to head out there for some much needed electrical supplies.

The electrical problems were that the ceiling light in the entry hall didn’t work and then the lights in the living room were all turning on no matter which switch that controlled the living room lights was turned on.

The living room light situation confused me and I decided to put off the repairs until later when I could devote the time to resolving them.  I examined the light in the entry hall and determined that it had come unattached to the ceiling.  I glued it back in place and then examined the wiring when it still didn’t turn on.  The wiring appeared to be fine, so I examined it’s connection to the control panel on the back of the house.  I have diodes attached to the lights in the entry hall and the dining room, so that the light from them is dimmer than they would be without it.  My feeling is this gives the lights a more realistic appearance.

My belief was that the diode on the entry hall light needed to be replaced.  I don’t have an electrical engineering degree, but that doesn’t mean that it’s necessary when wiring a dollhouse or miniature scene.  However, when I’ve developed a theory about any electrical problem I’m having—I consult my husband who has an EE degree.  I told him my theory and that I couldn’t find any other reason for the problem and he said that yes, diodes can die after awhile.  We went out to a local Radio Shack and got a couple of new ones.  I replaced the dead diode with the new one and my entry hall lighting problem was solved!

Entry Hall with fixed ceiling light

Today I was able to look into the electrical problems in the living room.  I got out my binder that contains the diagrams I made when I first electrified the house.  Switched on each of the lights that had issues back in November one by one.  Next to my notations for each switch, I wrote down what was happening now. 

It seemed that my problem had changed.  Now the lights all worked independently except that the lamp in the front living room window would come on with the entry hall light.  I pulled the house a little off the table that it sits on, so that I could examine the wiring underneath.  The wiring looked fine with the exception of the fact that the masking tape that had been holding to the underside of the house had come loose and was now hanging down.  This led me to examine the wiring of the control panel at the back of the house. 

I unscrewed it from the back and it appeared that everything was fine.  Then I noticed that the diode from the entry hall light was reaching all the way over to the 7^th switch that controlled the lamp in the front window.  The diode is pretty much swathed in tape, but there’s a bit of the end that’s not protected and I felt that I might have found my problem.  I gently pulled the diode a little away from the panel and tested out the 7^th switch.  Surprise, the living room lamp lit up without the entry hall light turning on as well. 

Living Room

I still asked my husband if this was possible and he confirmed my theory.  His suggestion was to put tape over the traces on the back of the control panel.  This would keep the diode from coming in contact with them and keep it from creating a short, which was causing my electrical problems.  He gave me some wonderful electrical tape to use for this, and I also used it to tape the wiring underside of the dollhouse’s first floor.

It’s great that I was able to resolve my electrical problems without spending any money or having to reconstruct my wiring system.