Ancestry Magazine

In the past, census records have provided genealogists with a great deal of useful information—names of family members and their ages, immigration and naturalization dates and places, occupation, and financial worth. Public access to such records, however, is granted only after seventy-two years have elapsed. For this reason, we both eagerly awaited the release of the 1930 census. (The Privacy Rights Act protects all federal records for a period of seventy-two years. This means the information contained in any such record is private and may only be accessed by the individual named in the record. For that reason, the 1930 census records were not released to the public until 2002.)

We knew from past experience that using the census wouldn’t be quick and easy, we were prepared to invest a substantial amount of time in the search for our family. After all, using census records has always meant a painstaking and tedious search to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Census Research in the Past
For every census up until now, a census search began with a search for the address of the individual you were looking for. If you didn’t have the address, you could perhaps find it in a city directory. Directories were published annually or semi-annual ly for most major cities, and many could be found at local libraries and historical societies. They could also be viewed on microfilm or microfiche from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and associated Family History Centers worldwide. In addition, many directories are available on CD-ROM or on microfilm from private vendors.

An address was necessary in order to locate the enumeration district (ED) in which the individual or family lived, and finding the enumeration district was the most challenging aspect of using the 1930 census. Because of the difficulty of this step, the National Archives has offered several publications to assist researchers in this arduous and time-consuming undertaking.

After finding the enumeration district, the family historian would next locate a branch of the National Archives, a local Family History Center, or a large public library to gain access to the census data on microfilm.

Once the microfilm was obtained, a researcher would load the microfilm and advance to the correct enumeration district. From there, you needed to read page by page until you found the address and then the family you were looking for. When the information was discovered, the page could be photocopied or the information entered onto a 1930 census research template. It could also be entered directly onto a family group sheet or data collection sheet.

While it is exciting to see your ancestor’s name in print (even if it wasn’t his or her own handwriting), using the census required a lot of time and patience. Fortunately, that’s no longer the case. Thanks to Ancestry.com and the 1930 census images and the accompanying every-name index on its website, a census search doesn’t have to mean hours hunched over a microfilm reader at the local library or family history center.

The Census Online
The 1930 Census offers some interesting information that is well worth having: the name of each person at a particular address, the relat ionship of each person to the head of household, if home was owned or rented, value of home, whether the family owned a radio set, sex, color, race, age at last birthday, marital status, age at first marriage, schooling, literacy, place of birth for person and person’s parents, language spoken in home, year of immigration, year of naturalization, and trade or profession. Since the 1930 census wasn’t available when we did our original research on our parents and grandparents, we looked forward to examining these records.

Before we turned to the 1930 census, though, we wanted to review our own personal data thoroughly, enter new information for recent events, and verify our documentation for earlier events. If we encountered any unsubstantiated research, we would note that entry on a follow-up list for a future research trip. If we encountered such a gap, we entered the possibility on our research objective sheet for that person.

At first, this method of re-examining our data seemed a daunting task. But as we developed an organized and consistent approach, we found it relatively easy to review what was there, verify that it had been accurately documented, and note possible future research objectives.

At last we were ready to examine the 1930 census. As subscribers to Ancestry.com, we had access to the online 1930 census index and images, and we both looked forward to seeing if our online census search would be an improvement over the methods we had used in the past. With a sense of anticipation, we connected to the Internet and went to the Ancestry.com website. We easily located the link to the online census records and clicked on it.

Found only at Ancestry.com, the online 1930 census records are available by subscription, and users can choose a number of different packages containing different resources. Subscribing to Ancestry.com is very easy to do, and once you are a subscriber, you simply follow the links on the screen to the 1930 census data screen. Once ther e, just type the name and other identifying information for the person you are researching in the 1930 census into the appropriate fields on the screen and click on the Search button. As with any search, you can often find more potential information by giving fewer identifiers.

The search engine may give you several possible matches, and it is a simple matter to investigate them further on the census itself to check other verifying details. Each name is linked to the census sheet it appears on so all the information you need is right at your fingertips. Just click on the link and the census sheet will appear on your screen. All this can be done while you are sitting in your den sipping hot chocolate, a comfortable change from your library or local family history center.

But using the new every-name index for the 1930 census, we found our ancestors—all eight of our grand- parents and all four of our parents—with a few simple keystrokes. Searching the census has never been so quick, so easy, or so much fun.

A Few Tips
As we began using the census data at Ancestry.com, we found some techniques that made our searches more effective.

1. It’s worth it to take a few minutes to download the Advanced Ancestry Image Viewer. It enhances your research experience while you are looking at your computer’s display screen.

2. Choosing “Soundex” rather than “Exact Spelling” for searching surnames will locate additional names that are not spelled as you’ve spelled your ancestor’s name but that “sound like” the one you are searching. (Soundex is based on the phonetic spellings of names). This is especially useful for those of us who have immigrant family members whose names were misspelled in the census.

3. Because Soundex does not work on first names or given names, the “wildcard” search feature can help you if you don’t locate the individual you seek on the initial search. For example, Terry’s father’s name is Marcel Cloutier. When we entere d his name in the search fields (even using the county, town, and state fields), the search returned “no records found.” However, when we entered his first name as Mar*, the search yielded fifty-three results. One of these was the record we were searching for. Terry’s father had been indexed as Mariel rather than Marcel.

We also encountered this situation in searching for both of our maternal grandmothers. The wildcard feature only works after you enter at least the first three letters of the person’s first name, so we could enter Mar* but not M* or Ma*.

4. Once you have located the appropriate page of the census, the buttons on the right of the screen help you to navigate through the pages of data. Using the “Quality” button will improve the clarity of the image, which is especially helpful for printing a copy of the page.

5. You can save the page of census data as a JPEG by using the “Save to Disk” feature. Later, you can load the image into a photo manipulating program, enlarge the image to the appropriate percentage, and print the image on 11” x 17” paper for easy viewing. Another option is to use the print function to print out an 8.5” x 11” copy of the data and enlarge it with a scanner or photocopier.

Our experience with the online 1930 census data has been yet another forcible reminder of how much home computers and the Internet have changed family history research. Genealogists have too much to do to spend hours hunting for enumeration districts and searching through pages of census microfilm. With the 1930 census index and images online, we found our parents and grandparents with relative ease and collected the information we needed. Who would have dreamed that using the census could be so much fun?

Terry and Jim Willard hosted the ten-part PBS Ancestors series. They have researched their family history fifteen generations back on both sides.