She was a beautiful, young Irish maid, working in a wealthy English household. Her employer’s oldest son fell in love with her. When he announced intentions to marry her, his parents said they would disown him. He married her anyway. Then, bride and groom ran away to live happily ever after. “Her name was Mary Cordial,” my maternal grandmother Marilyn Matilda Dietz told me, that distinct glimmer of pleasure in her eyes—the one she always had when she retold this story. “And you are her legacy.”

This blog is a resource for those who want to--have to--find out more about who they came from.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Hooray for 1940!

My grand-aunt and grandmother, 1940s 

Armchair genealogists across the country are rejoicing over the news that the 1940 United States Census was released on April 2nd, providing those with more recent brick walls to blast through yet another opportunity to shake their family trees and watch some reluctant relatives fall out.

Below are some helpful links to get interested researchers started:


     National Archives – 1940 Census

     United States Census Bureau – 1940 Census

     Wikipedia: 1940 United States Census outlines what exactly you'll find out.

     1940Census.net: The 1940 Census Source for Genealogy & Family

     Google News about the 1940 U.S. Census


It's going to be a while before 1940 is fully indexed, so unless you know exactly where your relatives might have lived (perhaps the same house as in 1930?), you may need to do a "census crawl"—meaning you'd go page by page, looking for your relatives in the city or town you suspect they lived in—in order to find them. Or you can wait, like I intend to do. In any case, happy hunting!
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