On this coming Monday, the National Archives will release its first-ever digitzed version of a census to the Internet. If you are into researching your genealogy, or even if you never have but would like to start, this is a welcome development; census records are kept confidential for 72 years to protect people's privacy. Below, a government archivist explains how the records have been prepared for online release.
And here, a family historian explains the unique features of the 1940 census and what you can do with it. Of course, the best way to start researching your roots is to begin with what you know - the present - and work backwards.
1940 Census Release from PPLD TV on Vimeo.
As a public service, your Head Trucker would like to pause here and offer this tip to budding filmmakers: DO NOT MINDLESSLY REPLAY THAT CUTESIE PERIOD MUSIC ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE FUCKING MOVIE. Twenty seconds' worth at the beginning and again at the end is totally sufficient. Unless, of course, you intend to IRRITATE THE LIVING HELL OUT OF YOUR VIEWERS. Just sayin'.
And one other big tip, to everybody: for every single bit of info you dig up on your ancestors, no matter how trivial, make a note of exactly where you found it. Trust me on this. Yes, it's a little irritating at first, when you are so excited and eager for the hunt - but if you make this a habit, you soon will get used to it, and it will save you major grief on down the road.
There are any number of good and inexpensive software programs that will make all of it easier, such as Family Tree Maker - about $35 last time I checked. Or you can do what your Head Trucker did, and just download the free software from the Mormon website, which is very user-friendly and has all the essential tools you need to keep track of your family data. It works just fine, and is dandy for a beginner.
For several years after I finally got a home computer in 1999 - yes, I was a tad late to the party, but I kept thinking it was all just a fad - I devoted a lot of time to climbing the branches of my family tree, and with persisitence, and help from a couple of cousins as well as some paid help from a couple of very nice professional genealogists, I finally was able to track down all but one of my 16 great-great grandparents, and 22 out of my 32 great-great-great grandparents. Which takes me back to colonial times in the 18th century, and all the lines that I can trace that far go back to old Virginia or Maryland.
Which is about what I figured when I started. It would be nice to get further back to England, but that would require digging in archives and things that aren't online, or paying someone to do it, and I just decided to quit while I was ahead; I have enough to confirm the general course of my ancestry, and that was a very satisfying research project. It's also a wonderful hobby because you never get to the end of it: there's always another branch to trace, more kinfolks to search for. And all that contributes to your understanding of who you are, exactly, and where you came from. As well as who you are not.
I'm over it now, largely because there's no easy way to go further back, but I can recommend ancestry.com for folks who want to do their own digging.
Before we leave this topic, you boys might enjoy this 1940 short the Census Bureau put out to encourage folks to cooperate with the census takers. The film begins, as so many made in that era did, with a paean to our great, shining Republic, wholly devoid of irony or self-consciousness, a thing not possible today for a number of reasons. I'm sad to say.
