Family History in Public History: Presenting at the NCPH/OAH 2012 Poster Session

This weekend I attended the National Council on Public History/Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting in Milwaukee, WI. While there, I had the opportunity to present a poster/board about my Family History research and it's connection to Public History (also the topic of my Master's Essay in 2009). It was super fun putting the board together over the last couple weeks and then getting to share my information with fellow public historians.

Stay tuned for updates (on this blog), from my poster board.

My first find: Isadore (Robert) Silverman

Because the 1940 census is being released online first, before going to microfilm, there is not an index yet. That means you can't just search for names like you can with other censuses on Ancestry.com (or similar sites). The only search fields are for State, County, City and Enumeration Districts. So you need to know addresses.

I was determined to be a super-slueth and find at least one of the Silverman family members the super hard way. I decided to start with California, and as luck would have it, that was ones of the first states ready to look at today. Last week I scoured City Directories for all the Silvermans who moved out to California, and I found quite a few good matches. But for Robert/Isadore, I found one for San Mateo, CA in both 1939 and 1940. Today I found the San Mateo Enumeration Map and paged through lots of tiny font and curvy roads until I found the street that had been listed in the city directory (Bellevue). Then I went to the 1940 Census and searched by the enumeration district. Easy enough, but I still had to find the family. It's not exactly clear how the enumerators scoured their neighborhoods, but I eventually figured out their rhythm (one side of the street, cross streets, and then the other side of the street). I had to scroll through 38 pages (only had a minor heart-attack about even-odd numbered houses), but I finally found the listing for 1429 Bellevue, the home and work place of Isadore, Anna and one of their sons, Albert (lines 6-8). You can not begin to imagine my excitement! Not only that I found their record, but that I found it the old-fashioned way! Woohoo for the technological age making us do grunt work for a change.

Here are two images to remind you who we're talking about. Isadore (Robert) is my maternal grandmother's uncle. Click here for more details about the family.

This Isadore (Robert) when he was younger, living in Montreal, Canada

And this is Isadore (Robert) closer to 1940.

Here are some images from my search:

1940 City Directory (close-up)-- Burlingame, San Mateo, California

1940 Enumeration Map (close-up)-- Burlingame, San Mateo, California-- 1429 Bellevue Ave.

1940 U.S. Census (close-up)-- Burlingame, San Mateo, California-- Isadore, Anna and Albert Silverman

Here is the full image of the 1940 Census

The 1940 Census is Here!

Please forgive me while I bombard you with all things 1940 Census, but this is a perfect place to share some of the great images and videos I've seen in the last week or so.

I almost forgot this one! I found this on Ancestry's Facebook Page this morning. These are the hard drives holding all the Census data, right before NARA staff began uploading it online. Crazy!

Ancestry.com has a pretty fun blog called Sticky Notes. It's a great space for every-day people and Ancestry staff can post things they find and share stories. This specific page is high-lighting the 1940 Census record of the great Franklin D. Roosevelt. Pretty exciting. Click on the image to visit the site.

Here is one great example of photographs depicting a 1940 Census enumerator, going to the farthest corners of the country to make sure everyone got recorded.

And lastly, this is a pretty great site that I stumbled upon last week.  It's a site sponsored by public and private genealogical organizations who are devoted to making the 1940 Census accessible and understandable. I signed up to be a blogger and indexer, and I'm super excited to join their efforts!