The 1940 United States Census is the biggest, most exciting, set of documents that genealogists will encounter this year. Many have waited a long time to be able to search through this data. Ancestry.com is offering access to the New York 1940 U.S. Census for free right now.
To say that the release of the data from the 1940 United States Census was exciting would be an understatement. Genealogists caused 37 million hits on the National Archives website right away. This caused a virtual traffic jam which temporarily made the website crash.
Later, when it once again became possible to access the census records, other aspects frustrated many genealogists. In order to search through the data, you had to know the specific locations that your ancestors lived in. It was not possible, at first, to do a search by name. If you didn’t happen to know your ancestor’s exact address, from seven decades ago, you were out of luck.
Now, that has changed. It is now possible to type a family name into an online search of the 1940 United States Census and have it come up with the details that a genealogist or family historian is hoping to find about the lives of New Yorkers. The information from New York is of national interest because so many Americans have ancestors who came to New York through Ellis Island.
Ancestry.com is offering free access to the 1940 U.S. Census data from New York. You have to sign up with Ancestry.com for a free account before you can actually see the results of your search. Their search engine does allow you to put in the first and middle names, and the last name, of your ancestor. If you happen to know a place where your ancestor might have lived, or his estimated birth year, you can add that to the search.
Ancestry.com has added other New York Census records. These include the 1892 New York State Census, the 1915 New York State Census, and the 1925 New York State Census. The website also has a special offer for genealogists who live in New York. Ancestry.com has a partnership with the New York State Archives, and they will give a free account to people who have a New York address. This gives you access to a ton of different collections of New York Census records, burial cards, marriage records, and more.
FamilySearch also has a lot of information about records from the 1940 United States Census for New York. They have a searchable image collection. You can also find helpful hints and tips about how to find your ancestor’s 1940 street address, or how to convert a 1940 street address into an Enumeration District. Everything at FamilySearch is accessible for free.
Image by Normal B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL on Flickr