In case you missed it, April 2nd arrived with a firestorm of activity! Not only were there 22.5 million people, trying to access the images within the first three hours, but #1940census was the number one trend on Twitter for the entire day! For more fun facts about the historic 1940 Census and the historic April 2nd, 2012 release event, see the fun facts poster from the National Archives at the bottom of this post!
Since the images began arriving in the indexing module that day, people from all over the country have been busy indexing as many names as possible. As of early this morning, the KHS Indexers group has indexed 15,628 names! Kentucky is not one of the states available for indexing at this time, but we are in line at number 29 and new states are being added everyday. Once Kentucky is posted, we’ll let you know via Twitter and Facebook, so stay tuned!
In the mean time, our indexers are honing their indexing skills on the other states that have been released for indexing since April 2nd. For those of you with border state ancestors/family; Ohio, Indiana, Missouri & Virginia are already up and ready to be indexed! In anticipation of Kentucky's release, we need more indexers! To learn more about the process of indexing, just watch the short video below:
Beyond indexing, many of us have been browsing the 1940 Census images through the National Archives since April 2nd in the hopes of finding our family. Some of us have found family members, neighbors and even Kentucky’s Governor from 1940, Keen Johnson! We welcome you to come to the Library and let us know what you’ve found in the 1940 Census! You can bring a small copy of a family member’s photo or a print out from the census to post on our large brag pages hanging next to the copiers! We have some bright colorful markers and sparkly star stickers to tempt you, in case you just want to write down the interesting thing you found in the census!
For more information about the 1940 Census and how you can get involved, visit this previous post, OR come to our free 2nd Saturday Family History Workshop, this Saturday April 14th! Our two-part session will cover the 1940 Census, why it is important, how to access the images, and how to use Enumeration District (ED) numbers to narrow your browsing patterns. The release of the 1940 Census is a momentous event, which means this 2nd Saturday will be somewhat of a celebration, complete with cake and door prizes! To reserve your spot, just e-mail khsrefdesk@ky.gov . Box lunches are available for $6 each, payable at the door, but reservations for lunch must be received by NOON on April 13th.
To all of our current indexing volunteers, Thank You for all of your hard work! For those of you thinking about it, we could really use your help! We're having loads of fun, and hopefully, we'll be ready to get Kentucky finished in record time!
--Cheri Daniels, Senior Librarian/Reference Specialist
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