I Found Them In 1940 And I Still Don't Know the Answer

     One reason I was looking forward to the 1940 Census was because I was curious about the organization of my Granny's household at the time. I knew that her parents had separated and wanted to know if they had divorced.  Their death certificates give conflicting information: one stating they were married, the other divorced.

     On Apr 2nd I found my granny, Sarah Britt, her father, Nathan, and brother, Evoid. They were living in Elbert County, Georgia and listed only two pages away from the man Sarah would marry that August (yes, she was 14). There was no sign of Sarah's mom, LeDora, nor her two sisters, Ollie and Helen.  And what is Nathan's marriage status. Married? Divorced? Oddly, it looks like AS. What on earth...?  (Also, I will not blame the indexer who will not be able to figure out Evoid's name)

     Maybe if I could find LeDora it would help clear things up? It took me two more days to find her, having browsed through 10 (!!!) enumeration districts to do so. But I did find her, living with her oldest daughter and her husband, as well as her youngest daughter. Maybe her marriage status will provide an answer? Nope; its a scribbled mess. (Also, I'm a little concerned that Ollie was 15 and married to a 35 year old)

     With the help of some folks on Twitter, during the Ancestry.com chat with Crista this afternoon, I think we've figured out Nathan's marriage status. They started to write 'M' for married but stopped after only writing the front flick. They crossed out the flick and then wrote an 'S'.

     For LeDora, it looks like they wrote 'M' and then scribbled it out. They then wrote something else - a '7'? That doesn't make sense. EDITED UPDATE: While watching DEARMyrtle's webinar tonight I learned that it is in fact a crossed out M with a 7. It turns out that the 'M' was recorded in the field and an office worker crossed it out and wrote 7 because there was no spouse listed. Voila!

     But I guess it does imply a few things. They were not divorced at the time, otherwise they would have just said so. However, they probably did not consider themselves married either. And I'm kinda sad that the kids got split up like that. But those are the facts of life I suppose.

A 1940 Census Search Status Update

     The census release got off to a rocky start on Monday, but by Tuesday everything was running smoothly. The National Archive's website was running perfectly for me while Ancestry.com and FamilySearch were steadily adding images. Today, MyHeritage became the first commercial site to have all images online.

     So, how am I doing? Here's a list of my direct line ancestors. I had EDs picked out for all of them and have conducted searches for them.

Found	Relationship		Missing	Relationship
Betty Huyler	Grandmother		Roy Albea	Grandfather
Ruby Huyler Whitfield	Great-Grandmother		Vernon & Auline Albea	Great-Grandparents
Sarah Britt	Grandmother		Vary "Mack" Huyler	Great-Grandfather
Nathan Britt	Great-Grandfather		Nina Albea	2xG Grandmother
Thomas Craft	Grandfather		John & Ida Huyler	2xG Grandparents
BE & Ruth Craft	Great-Grandparents		Ledora Barfield Britt	Great-Grandmother
Stephen T Boatright	3xG Grandfather		Frances Boatright Barfield	2xG Grandmother
William D Witt	2xG Grandfather		Effie Craft	2xG Grandmother
			Leila Evans	2xG Grandmother
			Leverett & Louise Waters	2xG Grandmother

    When I look at this list, something stands out: for the most part the left hand side are farmers and the right hand side are mill workers or widows. Mill workers moved a lot. A lot. Looking at city directories, they are almost never in the same place two years in a row. And the widows have possibly moved in with one of their children, leaving the homes they had with their husband.

     I'm going to keep looking for my missing ancestors, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to find them without an index.  As far as index completion is concerned, I think I've heard that one might be completed as soon as 6 months.  I'm going to have to do my part and do some more indexing with FamilySearch. I've done two pages so far and have found it exceedingly easy. Hopefully they'll start Georgia and South Carolina soon!

What I Found So Far in 1940

     It's been 12 hours since the official release of the 1940 Census and I've managed to download 2 EDs. I've spent many other hours searching for the rest to no avail. And it's not because I don't know where they are or I can't find them, it's because the census is too popular for its own good.

     The National Archives created a lot of hype regarding the census release and, as the Ancestry Insider predicted, it crashed their website.  From the minute the National Archive's website opened it was overloaded and difficult to use. The presentation during the opening ceremony didn't even work! About 45 minutes in the site went down completely.  When it came back up it wasn't much better. Images do not load. Your best bet is to download the images. That is, if the download process will work.

     Understandably a number of folks expressed their displeasure and frustration on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter - and I was one of them. As my mom can attest, I have zero patience. If someone tells me I can do something at a certain time, I expect to be able to do it. I completely understand that traffic to the site was insane, but that doesn't change my frustration level. Just being honest.

     When I got frustrated with the Archives site, I switched to Ancestry.com. They had managed to add a few Pennsylvania Counties, home to my brother-in-law's family. I found his grandfather and his parents, which I sent to my sister. I wasn't really too surprised that my brother-in-law was 'blah' about the find.

     Back the Archive's site: they did make an effort to improve access from minute one. I honestly think they thought they were prepared. And I was going to say that their efforts have helped only a little, but just now I re-ran a search to great success. I'm currently downloading ED 73-1 and ED 52-24. Things are looking up!

Today Is The Day

From Ancestry.com's main page:

     At 8:30 am I'll be tuned into the National Archive's live webcast. I'll then start searching for my family on their site. But I'm also curious about how quickly other sites, such as FamilySearch and Ancestry.com will have images online. From the graphic above, it looks like Ancestry.com plans to have the first images up some time today. 

     I have been invited to be part of the Ancestry.com 1940 Aces program. They promise to provide updates to the progress they make in getting the census images and indexes online.  I like that they're not making promises on their progress but are being realistic. They're going to do their best and they'll keep us updated.

     I'm looking forward to exploring the 1940 Census... but maybe for now I should get some sleep. Only 8.5 hours to go!

Update: 8am
     Ancestry.com has select images available for American Samoa, Delaware, DC, Guam, Indiana, Maine, Nevada, Panama Canal, Rhode Island and the Virgin Islands.
     FamilySearch has the complete images available for Delaware.