Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Where Were My Peeps in 1940?

I have been finding where my ancestral families resided in 1940 in order to prepare for the 1940 U.S. Census release at 9 a.m. EDT on 2 April 2012.  To do this, I'm using the Steve Morse Unified 1940 Census Tool (http://stevemorse.org/census/quiz.php) to find the Enumeration district for each family.

Here are the ancestral families I've figured out so far (I'll do the extended families in another post).

1)  Lyle L. Carringer (born 1891), Emily K. Carringer (born 1899) and Betty V. Carringer (born 1919, my mother) resided at 2130 Fern Street in San Diego, San Diego, California.  The ED number is 62-63A.

2)  Georgia K. Auble (born 1868) is Emily's mother, and she resided with the Lyle Carringer family at 2130 Fern Street.

3)  Henry Austin Carringer (born 1853) and Della S. Carringer (born 1862) are Lyle's parents, and they resided at 2115 30th Street.  This is the same block that Lyle lived on, so they will be in the same ED.

4)  Frederick W. Seaver (born 1876) and Alma B. Seaver (born 1882) are my paternal grandparents and I think that they lived in Leominster, Worcester, Massachusetts at either 20 Hall Street or 53 West Street.  Using Google Maps, 20 Hall Street is between West Street and Academy Street.  Using the ED Finder, it did not include Academy Street, so I used Merriam Street and also Gibson Street.  The ED  found was 14-179.

53 West Street appears to be on the north side of the street with the block bounded by West Street, School Street, Merriam Avenue and Orchard Street.  The ED Finder shows that the ED is 14-180.

To check this out, I went to the National Archives Online Public Access site )http://www.archives.gov/research/search/) and entered Leominster, Massachusetts into the search box.  The map of Leominster came up and I was able to zoom in to see the boundaries of EDs 14-179 and 14-180:


That was easy!

5)  Where was my father, Frederick W. Seaver (born 1911) living in 1940?  I don't know.  He may have been enumerated with his parents, but he may have been residing with one of his sisters.  I don't know the towns, or the addresses in those towns, where his sisters lived in 1940.  I may have to wait until the indexes appear to find him.

UPDATE:  After reviewing the 1940 Leominster City Directory on Ancestry.com, it appears that the Frederick W. Seaver family, including my father, resided at 90 Main Street in Leominster.  Assuming that 90 is on the west side of this north-south street, the cross streets are Merriam Avenue and Walnut Street, and the back street is Grove Street.  This gives an ED number of 14-181.

I will do my father's siblings and cousins in the next post.

Do you know where your family members were in 1940?  If you have the town/city and address, you can use the ED Tool to find the ED before the census is released in 13 days.  If you don't know the street address, there is still time to find out by using the list of resources in How Can I Find Out Where My Folks Lived in 1940?  A hint:  Check Ancestry.com for city directories for the 1940 time period!


UPDATED:  22 March, 9 a.m. to correct address in 1940 from Leominster city directories.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/03/where-were-my-peeps-in-1940.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

3 comments:

Candy said...

Thank you for the info! I was all set with state, county, and township info and prepared to search page by page, but did not have ED...that oversight has now been remedied!

Dr. Bill (William L.) Smith said...

Randy,
Where did this use of the word "peeps" come from? It is totally new to me... after 72+ years, I thought I had "heard them all" - obviously not. Thanks! ;-)

AnnieB said...

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=peeps