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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
