US census
By savypat
@savypat (20216)
United States
March 8, 2012 3:00pm CST
The 1940 Census is being put on line, and it's my understanding that this will be available on April 2, 2012. I can't wait, I have so many questions of that year,
hopefully I can find my parent's marriage and where they lived, where my grandparents lived and so on. These census are held every 10 years but not released to the public for 70 years due to the personal information contained in the census, of course the government has all this info about 1 year after it's taken.
2 people like this
6 responses
@beaniefanatic13 (5076)
• Grand Junction, Colorado
9 Mar 12
I don't know how you would get all that information. Was more information collected back then? I think I remember this last census just asking for age, nationality, whether you were male or female that sort of thing. Nothing about names, maybe I'm wrong. interesting I will have a look and see what information was collected back then.
@duke1000 (100)
• United States
9 Mar 12
There is names on the census. The old census was all done door to door by takers. They would put the names of all the members of the household including ages where they were born etc. if i could post pictures I would show one of an older census I have in my computer. They are quite informative but tend to be really hard to read at times. Depending on who the census taker was the handwriting can be a little hard with some of them.
1 person likes this
@savypat (20216)
• United States
11 Mar 12
In each census they ask different questions, when they first started all they had was the male head of family and the numbers of males and females in the household.I think they also may have shown the occupation of the head.
Each time they added more info. Now most census information is taken by mail, but if there are any strange answers someone will come to your house. Of course the one that is coming out is for 1940, that's over 70 years ago.
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
12 Mar 12
I knew that there were was information from some of the census that were available to the general public, but I never knew that the information was held for 70 years before it was released to the public. However, it does make a lot of sense because of the fact that the census does require that we put or social security numbers on the forms and that is something that we really don't want the general public to have access to about us.
1 person likes this
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
12 Mar 12
I wish the future generations luck. Many people refused to answer the census on the grounds that the government has turned into "Big Brother." So future generations will get little or nothing from some people. Many said, "It's a count, so you have my name and here is the count of my family, you're getting nothing more." So 70 years from now, that's all they'll get. How many people were in a family.
1 person likes this
@dragon54u (31634)
• United States
9 Mar 12
Wow, that's great!! I have made an entry in my Mini-Minder to look up that information and find out more about my grandparents and parents. Thank you for telling us! 
1 person likes this
@JenInTN (27514)
• United States
11 Mar 12
I accidentally ran across a census database when I was researching a paper. I found my family on there! My great grandparents and their children. Of course I punched the surname in when I ran across it to access the info, but was amazed when it came up.
1 person likes this
@inertia4 (27960)
• United States
12 Mar 12
Although it would be interesting to see that information, the census is another one of those bull things the government does. Do you realize how many people lie on the census? I know I always hate when these people some around asking personal questions. I never speak to them. The government already has my information and know that I exist.
1 person likes this
