Today, April 2, 2012, is an exciting day in the genealogy world; the 1940 census is being released after the federally-mandated 72 year embargo!
At 9am EST, the National Archives & Records Administration is releasing the images on their website at http://1940census.archives.gov/. You may wish to visit the site at 8:30am EST however for the live webstream event that will preface the release. When the images are made available online, there will not be an index right away – you’ll need to have the Enumeration District for the people/places you wish to search. More information about how to start your census search is available from the NARA website.
As equally exciting though is that YOU CAN HELP CREATE A FREE INDEX; Archives.com, FamilySearch.org, and FindMyPast have partnered to create the US Community Indexing Project to recruit volunteers to help with the indexing. After all, the sooner the index is created, the sooner you can get started searching your family members. Visit www.the1940census.com for details on how to get started. Most importantly – why not let those indexing credits count towards a good cause!
On April 11, 2012, the images for North Carolina were made available to be indexed. You can sign up to contribute your efforts to the USGenWeb one of 4 ways.
- The first time you sign into the Indexing program, you can select the group you want to be a part of. Choose “US Genweb Project.” If you need to download the program, you can go here to get it.
- If you have a FamilySearch account, sign into indexing.familysearch.org, click My Info in the top right corner, then click the Edit button to select the “US Genweb Project.”
- Email Linda Lewis (webmaster@cottonhills.com) or Sherri Bradley (usgenwebnc@windstream.net)
- Contact FamilySearch Indexing Support and they can move your account into the group you want to belong to.
Go ahead! Join the cause and help us get this index online. I plan to do some indexing, will you?