1940 Census Indexing

Are any of you helping out with the indexing of the 1940 Census? I have been doing this for the past 2-3 weeks & it is a lot of fun! Since the Census forms were written out in long hand by the original census takers back in 1940 & they are now on Microfilm they have to be entered into a database by human beings-so FamilySearch.org is recruiting volunteers to do that online. It has been very interesting & surprising as well.

Some of the most surprising things for me have been that such a large percentage of the adults on the rolls were born in countries other than the US as well as the number of them who came from other states! Some of the families have several children each of who had been born in different states & I even found one lady who was 109 years old. If you want to find out about it or even volunteer go to their website. 8^) Vanye

I've been indexing.

I've just signed on as an arbitrator--a little more tricky than indexing.

I was indexing regularly for a while as time allowed on evenings and weekends, but have had to put it on the back burner in the last couple of weeks to get other things done. Definitely a wide variety of handwriting quality! Apparently good handwriting wasn't a requirement or a lot of census takers misrepresented their skills in that regard. The 1940 census project is worth getting involved in, though. And the practice items when I started off were interesting.

I note that Ancestry currently has DE, NV, DC and now NY indexed. There may be others. Do other services, free or subscription, have other states indexed or is this all one big effort?

James

Family Search say that 18 states are done now-if you go to their website you can find out which ones! I am still indexing & having fun doing it too! 8^)

Family Search has a lot more states indexed than Ancestry.com, and there are a good number of states indexed but not arbitrated yet on Family Search. I have been indexing the 1940 census for them since they started, and it is addictive. I would also like to say I was not impressed with the indexing on ancestry.com. I found 6 obvious errors in 10 minutes on DC searches.

Apparently a big day coming up for indexing--July 2. I think they're trying to break a record for most records indexed.

Yep and got the t-shirt.

Glad to know trickier kac522. I think before I volunteer to arbitrate, I will watch somebody do it. It kind of annoys me to see the indexing done half. . . But I also would not want to arbitrate unless I can do it well.