Blank 1940 Census form

I know it was hard to read the original census form that I posted yesterday.  Here is a clean and clear blank form.  You can fill in the information off the original form to have a cleaner record.

Sidney Riley Family 1940 Census

Ancestry.com has uploaded all the 1940 Census forms!  They are not indexed (which means they are not searchable by name yet) but they are working day and night to get it done.  They have finished Delaware and Nevada.  They are currently on District of Columbia.


If you know the street and a cross street, you can look up using the Enumeration District.  Fortunately, I knew the street address where my father's family was living in 1940.  I had to search through two districts.  They weren't in the first (26 pages) and found them on page 20 (of 36) of the second.  Sidney and Selma are at the bottom of this page, with three sons and the youngest three sons are on the next page. 


It is a little hard to read, remember you can click on the picture to make it bigger.

They lived at 504 Gage Street.  Sid was employed for 40 hours a week at a Rubber Company (we know it was Goodyear) in the Experimental Department.  He made $2400 per year in 1939 and worked 52 weeks.  Selma was not employed.  They owned their home, valued at $2000.  He was 42 and Selma 41.  My dad, Ramon, was five at the time the census was taken.


If you want me to find any 1940 Records for you, email me with the city, state, street and cross street (you can find the cross street by looking at Google Maps) and I'll see what I can do for you.

Tomorrow is a very big day.

The National Archives releases a US Census every 10 years, 72 years after it was taken.  Tomorrow marks the release of the 1940 census, the first one that my parents will show up on.  I am quite excited.  I was selected as an "Ancestry.com Ace" (not sure what that really means) but  here is the first info they have sent me:

The National Archives and Records Administration will open the 1940 U.S. Federal Census on April 2, 2012—the first time this collection will be made available to the public. Once we receive the census, we will begin uploading census images to our site so the public can browse them. Initially, this collection will be what we call a browse-only collection. This means a person can scroll through the pages of the census districts much like you would look at a microfilm or a book. At the same time, we will be working behind the scenes to create an index of the census that will eventually allow people to search for their family members by name as they currently can with all other censuses on Ancestry.com. Note also that the 1940 U.S. Federal Census will be accessible free of charge throughout 2012 on Ancestry.com.

By the way, two key questions people have are how long will the upload process take? and when will my state be ready. Unfortunately, until we start the process we have no idea exactly how long it will be before all images or a specific state will be uploaded. We like to use this analogy: think about how long it takes to upload all of the images on a memory card onto a home computer. Now imagine that memory card holds 3.8 million, very-high-definition images. You get the picture.