Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Steve Morse 1940 Census Site Takes You to NARA Census Images

I hope that you are all using the Steve Morse Unified 1940 Census ED Finder (http://stevemorse.org/census/unified.html) to find Enumeration Districts where your target families lived in the 1940 Census time.  My process is to:

1)  Find the address in a 1940-era City Directory (Ancestry.com has many!), family paper, or other resource.

2)  Check Google Maps (maps.google.com) to identify the block with that address (note the cross streets and back street).  If you cannot find the address on Google Maps, then use the NARA Enumeration District Maps.

3)  Use the Steve Morse Unified 1940 Census ED Finder to obtain the Enumeration District number.

4)  Once the Enumeration District is identified by number, you can click on the ED number on the Steve Morse site to go directly to the set of Enumeration district images on the National Archives 1940 Census site.

I just did this for my wife's parents in San Francisco:

After finding their address in a 1940 San Francisco Voter Registration directory on Ancestry.com (1295 15th Avenue), I looked on Google Maps and found the address.  The cross streets are Lincoln Way, Irving, and the back street is 16th Avenue.

Here is the Steve Morse Unified 1940 Census ED Finder page with the data filled in (two screens, some overlap):



The Steve Morse website found the ED;  it is 38-377 in San Francisco.  If I click on the "More Details" button, I can find the Roll Number for this ED.

On the Morse site, as shown above, the ED number is a hot link (in blue, underlined).  There are three radio buttons in the box just below the ED number.  They are for "1940 Census Pages;" "1940 ED Description;" or "1940 Streets in ED."  I left the "1940 census Pages" clicked, and clicked on the ED Number.  The link took me to the first page of the Enumeration District images on the NARA 1940 Census website (but the URL is still on the Morse site):


From this page, I can browse through the specific page (scroll up/down, scroll right/left), print, or download the page image (or the ED set of images).  I can advance to the next or previous page, or to a specific image.  Here is what I found on the 3rd image:



I don't see a way to zoom in or out on this image, or from within the Steve Morse site.

I get a BONUS!  EUREKA!  Edna Leland, my wife's mother, is on Line 29 on this form, which was a Sampling line on this form.

Joel Weintraub mentioned this feature at our CVGS program meeting last Wednesday, and again last night on DearMYRTLE's webinar.   This was my first chance to use it!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/04/steve-morse-1940-census-site-takes-you.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the tip about the Steve Morse website - the enumeration district finder and enumeration district maps have been an invaluable help to me so far!