Apr 06

Browsing the 1940 Census

Some of the first relatives I located in the 1940 census, Bob & Bernice Dudgeon, 2nd from left.

I’m sure everyone knows by now that the 1940 US census was released this past Monday, 2 April.  Many of us were eagerly awaiting that day but, as you probably also heard, things did not go as planned.

There were over 22.5 million hits on the NARA website within three hours as people tried to get a peek at the images. Most people, myself included, never got to view the 1940 census on the NARA website on Monday. Here is how the first part of this week went for me:

Monday, 7:25 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, I read on Facebook that Ancestry.com has a few 1940 census images available for viewing. Immediately I go to Ancestry.com, killing time until the National Archives releases the complete census at 9:00 a.m.

Ancestry’s list includes about ten US states and territories and Indiana is one of them. Yes! Indiana is one of the states I want to search.

The Ancestry website works smoothly and the images load quickly. The areas are broken down by state, then county, then township. It is easy to find a township and I do not even need the enumeration district numbers that I had looked up a few days before. However, the 1940 census is not yet indexed, so I browse through the names on each sheet of a particular township. That goes fairly quickly.

One of my goals is to locate where my three great-grandmothers were living in 1940. Pearl Brewster and her husband Philip lived on a farm in Jefferson Township, Adams County, at the time Philip passed away in 1935. I begin searching through the 18 sheets of Jefferson Township.

By 7:41 I see names that I recognize. Right there, on sheet 1, is Robert Dudgeon and his family. Robert’s name is on line 29, too! A person listed on line 29 answered supplemental questions. How lucky could I get? A relative that I remember on line 29 of sheet one! Robert’s wife Bernice was a daughter of Pearl Brewster. I must be getting close. I continue on.

I find what I am looking for on sheet 14, line 80. I am elated. My great-grandmother Pearl Brewster was living with her daughter and son-in-law, Arthur & Dorothy Weaver.

As I search through Jefferson Township I see the names of other relatives and acquaintances that I knew or have heard of. Some are still around today. Some of them:

Flora Caffee with granddaughter Betty Myers (ages 75 & 14)
Conrad & Emma Heffner (ages 73 & 67)
Harley & Ella Reef (ages 57 & 47) with daughters Naomi & Imogene (ages 23 & 21)
Ralph & Alpha Derrickson (ages 44 & 42) with children Ralph, Alvin, William (ages 15, 12 & 2)
Vic & Chloe Bollenbacher (ages 36 & 34) with children Althea & Olen (ages 9 & 4)
Theodore & Hazel Brewster (ages 38 & 32) with children Mary, Virginia, Jerry & Keith (ages 10, 5, 3, & 1)

At 8:59 a.m. I go over to the www.1940census.archives.gov website to see how their website works and to browse Mercer and Van Wert Counties in Ohio. Like most others trying to access the census on their website I get nowhere. Nothing is loading. I try off and on until noon and then give up. I would have to view my Ohio counties another day.

By now I need to get away from the madness and get some fresh air. It is a nice sunny day so I pack up my cameras and go over to Schumm Cemetery and take a photo of every tombstone there. It turns out to be a nice quiet, peaceful, tech-free afternoon.

Tuesday, 5:32 a.m.: The NARA website is now working well and I can view the census images. Ancestry.com now has Ohio! Too bad I have to go to work today. At lunch I browse Mercer and Van Wert Counties and locate my parents and my other two great-grandmothers. I note the pages and download them later that evening at home.

At 9:06 p.m. Tuesday I decide to try my hand at indexing the 1940 census. I read that some had already begun indexing Monday evening. Last week I downloaded the indexing program and read the indexing tutorial. Although I have never indexed before I am ready to give it a try. I download a census page from Kansas and I index the page in about ½ hour. This is fun! It is not difficult at all. And I feel good about helping index the census. I encourage others to try their hand at indexing so we will soon have it completed. Learn more about indexing the 1940 census at the 1940 US Census Community Project.

Several websites now have free access to the 1940 US census. These include Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, and Familysearch.org, and Archives.com, which has the complete set of 1940 census image from the NARA, www.1940census.archives.gov. The non-NARA websites may not currently have all of the images but will have them all soon. I have had the most success with Ancestry.com.

Here are the highlights of two households from Jefferson Township, Adams County, Indiana, 1940 US Census, from Ancestry.com:

Arthur Weaver household, sheet 7B, Stubes [?] Road, 136th house visited, line 76; Arthur, head, age 26; Dorothy, wife, 24; Myrna, daughter, 3; Arthur, son, 1; Pearl Brewster, mother, 58. Owned their home, value of $500, lived on a farm; highest level of education: Arthur H4, Dorothy H1, Pearl 8 [I assume H=high school]; they lived in the same house in 1935; Arthur worked 52 weeks in 1939 with an income of $1200.

Arthur Weaver household, line 76, 1940 US Census, Jefferson Twp, Adams Co, Ind, p 7B

The “x” by Dorothy’s name indicates that she gave the information to the census taker. She was the informant.  The 1940 census also asked where the persons were living in 1935. This was to determine how much families moved during the Great Depression.

Robert Dudgeon household: sheet 1A, Boze [?] Road, 8th house visited, line 29; Robert Dudgeon, head, age 36; Bernice, wife, 32, Richard, son, 5; rented home w/monthly rent of $10; lived on a farm; highest level of education for Robert and Bernice was 8th grade; Robert’s supplemental questions: his father was born in Indiana; their mother tongue was English; he did not have a Social Security Number; usual occupation was farmer.

Robert Dudgeon household, line 29, 1940 US Census, Jefferson Twp, Adams Co, Ind, p 1A

In Ohio, great-grandmother Christine (Rueck) Miller was living with the Reefs in Mercer County and great-grandmother Elizabeth (Schinnerer) Scaer was living with son Oscar Scaer in Van Wert County. My parents were on the farms they still own today.

Elizabeth Scaer, line 23; CL Schumm family, line 27, 1940 US Census, Willshire Twp, Van Wert Co, Ohio, p 8A

Carl Miller household, line 38, 1940 census, Blackcreek Twp, Mercer Co, Ohio, p 8A

Carl Miller household continued, 1940 Census, Blackcreek Twp, Mercer Co, Ohio, p 8B

My aunt Ruth was not in the Miller household. She was probably away at college.

Wavil Reef household, line 64, 1940 Census, Blackcreek Twp, Mercer Co, Ohio, p 8B. Christina Miller line 66.

Here are some statistics about the release of the 1940 census on 2 April 2012:

  • There are 18 Terabytes of hosted data (1 Terabyte=1000 GB. The entire printed collection of the Library of Congress is approximately 10 Terabytes.)
  • Day 1
    • 22.5 million hits in the first 3 hours
    • 100,000+ requests/minute during the day
    • 25,000+ requests/minute during night
    • 120+ x-large cloud servers
    • 1,000 news articles written
  • Day 2:
    • 40.1 million hits during peak 3 hour period
    •  200,000+ requests/minute during day
    • 25,000+ requests/minute during night
    • 180+ 4X-large cloud servers
    • 250,000+ people spent 10+ min on site generating 4.2Million+ page views

Source: Archives.com, accessed 4 Apr 2012.

As you can see, I am not the only one interested in viewing the 1940 census!

 

Apr 03

Tombstone Tuesday–Andreas Dietrich

Andreas Dietrich, Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Schumm, Ohio

This is the tombstone of Andreas Dietrich, located in row 4 of Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Schumm, Van Wert County, Ohio. The marker is inscribed: Andreas, son of J. and C. Dietrich, died 10 Oct 1846, aged 3 years, 6 months, 12 days.

His death is the 5th death recorded in the Schumm church records: Andreas Dietrich, age 3 years, 6 months, 12 days, died 10 October 1846.

According to Zion’s Family Register, also in the church records, Andreas Dietrich was born 28 March 1843, the son of Johann Jacob and Maria Katharina (Werner) Dietrich.

Andreas was likely born in Van Wert County because it appears the family moved to the Schumm area in 1838.

There are very few families listed in Zion’s Family Register and fortunately the Johann Jacob Dietrich family is among them.

Mar 30

Anticipating the 1940 Census

1940 US Federal Census Form

Something BIG will happen Monday. Something genealogists all across the country have been eagerly awaiting for 10 years.

At 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time, April 2nd, nearly every genealogist in America will be on the Internet to view the 1940 US Federal Census for the first time.

The digitized 1940 Census will be released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Monday and will be made available for viewing on the special NARA 1940 Census website free of charge.

Census enumerations can be released to the public 72 years after the enumeration. There hasn’t been this much excitement in the genealogy world since the 1930 census was released on 1 April 2002.

The US Census Bureau has some interesting facts about the 1940 census. This census was taken near the end of the Great Depression but before our entry into World War II. It was the only census taken during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

There were a total of 81 questions asked in the 1940 Census: 34 concerning population, 31 pertaining to housing and 16 supplemental population questions asked of 5% of the people.

There were some new questions asked in 1940: where was their residence five years earlier, their income, the highest level of school completed, unemployment history, who was the informant. Some of the questions were added to measure the effects of the Great Depression.

It was also the first census to ask a random sample of the population (about 1 in 20) an extra set of more detailed questions. These questions included birth place of mother and father, mother tongue, veteran status, occupation, industry, class of worker, age at first marriage, number of children born, and others.

Census enumerators were told to visit every house, building, tent, cabin, hut or any other place in which a person might be living. During the visit enumerators interviewed residents and recorded answers in a portfolio-sized book.

Initially, searching for people in the 1940 census will be challenging and will require a little homework beforehand. The images released by the NARA on Monday do not have a name index. In this digital age we are spoiled. We can go to FamilySearch.org or Ancestry.com or Heritage Quest and search for names in any census because all censuses released thus far have been indexed.

Do not despair. The 1940 census will soon be indexed. Soon after its release thousands of volunteers will begin work to index the more than 132 million people enumerated in 1940. But it will take a few months for the indexing to be complete. Information about indexing is on the Community 1940 US Census Project.

In the meantime, how will you find someone in the un-indexed 1940 census? To locate someone you will need to know the enumeration district (ED) in which they were living. The enumeration district is an administrative division of a particular county or township for the purposes of census-taking. You may be able to determine the ED ahead of time if you know the person’s address in 1940. If they didn’t move around you can probably use their 1930 address or their 1930 ED.

Steve Morse has devoted a portion of his website to help determined enumeration districts. I used his Unified 1940 Census ED Finder to determine the EDs of my Miller and Schumm relatives and some nearby areas. To the best of my knowledge the following will be the enumeration districts for these areas. I assume that once I get to the specific ED I will scroll through the pages, the way we used to look through microfilm, before indexing. I will be searching mainly rural areas. Determining the ED in a city is a little different.

Mercer County, Ohio, Roll 3114:
Black Creek Township & part of Chattanooga: ED 54-1 (pop. 886)
Dublin Township, Rockford: ED 54-5 (pop. 1066)
Dublin Township (outside Rockford): ED 54-6 (pop. 1018)
Liberty Township & part of Chattanooga: ED 54-22 (pop. 1194)

Van Wert County, Ohio, Roll 3163:
Willshire Township (outside Willshire & Wren villages): ED 81-28 (pop. 997)
Willshire Village: ED 81-26 (pop. 513)

Adams County, Indiana: Roll 1024:
Jefferson Township: ED 1-4 (pop. 700)
Geneva: ED 1-20 (pop. 966)
Wabash Township (outside Berne & Geneva): ED 1-21 (pop. 1271)

The NARA also has 1940 Census Maps to determine enumeration district numbers. Enter in the search box: 1940 census maps + county + state. (e.g. 1940 Census Maps Mercer Ohio)

Who will I be looking for in the 1940 census on Monday? Most of the ancestors I am seeking were long deceased by 1940 but it will be interesting to view information about people I remember and know. And it will be interesting to see how they answered the census questions.

I hope to locate the household of my parents, grandparents and some of my great-grandparents. All of my grandparents were living in 1940 as well as three of my great-grandparents. Great-grandmothers Christina (Rueck) Miller, Pearl (Reid) Brewster, Lizzie (Schinnerer) Scaer would have been enumerated that year. I believe two of them were living with their children.

For additional information about the 1940 US Census visit NARA 1940 Census Records, 1940 U.S. Federal Census and Family Tree Magazine’s census article.

According to Dick Eastman this census will be the first to use cloud computing in order to handle the expected sudden increase in workload of the servers during the first few days. The servers at 1940census.archives.gov will actually be a collection of hundreds of servers in the cloud.

I hope they are ready for all the Internet traffic at 9:00 this coming Monday morning. Look out! Here we come!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 27

Tombstone Tuesday–J Howard & Caroline Caffee

J Howard & Caroline Caffee, Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Mercer County, Ohio.

This is the tombstone of Howard and Caroline (Miller) Caffee, located in row 10 of Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Chattanooga, Mercer County, Ohio. The marker is inscribed, CAFFEE, Caroline, 1893-1988; J. Howard, 1892-1954, Galatians, 2:20.

Howard Caffee obituary:

Death Claims J. Howard Caffee, Widely Known Nearby Dairy Farmer
J. Howard Caffee of southwest of Willshire died at 2 a.m. Sunday at his home following an extended illness. Born in Adams Co., Ind., on February 7, 1892, he was 62 years of age at the time o f death, which was attributed to a coronary heart condition and complications. It came suddenly and in his sleep.

Mr. Caffee was widely known as a dairy farmer and in addition had served as supervisor for the Central Sugar Co. for a number of years. In recent years he was considered one of the best farmers in this area. The deceased also had been very active in church work.

Mr. Caffee was a member of Zion Lutheran Church of Chattanooga, where funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon at 2:00 in charge of Rev. Waldo Byers, church pastor. Burial was made in the church cemetery.

Surviving his passing are his wife, Caroline, and the following children: Vernon and Dale, who reside on Willshire route, Eugene of Geneva, Ind., route two, Mrs. Kermit Stetler of Rockford route two and Donald of Ft. Knox, Ky., who had entered military service about three weeks ago. Eleven grandchildren and one brother also mourn his passing. (source: The Willshire Herald, 19 August 1954, p.1)

Caroline Caffee obituary:

Caroline C. Caffee, 94, route 1, Willshire, widow of J. Howard Caffee, died Friday, March 4 at Adams County Memorial Hospital.

She was a member of Zion Lutheran Church, Chattanooga. Born on March 18, 1893, in Mercer County, she was the daughter of Jacob and Christina Rueck-Miller, and was married Jan. 8, 1914, in Celina, to J. Howard Caffee; he died in 1954.

Survivors include three sons, Eugene Caffee, route 2, Geneva, Ind.; Dale Caffee, route 3, Decatur, Ind.; and Donald Caffee, route 1, Willshire; one daughter, Mrs. Kermit (Fern) Stetler, route 4, Rockford; one sister, Clara Reef, route 1, Willshire; 14 grandchildren; 30 great-grandchildren; and seven great-great-grandchildren. One son, Vernon Caffee, preceded her in death.

Services were held Monday at Yager-Kirchhofer Funeral Home, Berne, Rev. Gary Anderson officiating. Burial was in the church cemetery. (source: The Willshire Herald, 9 March 1988, p.1)

Caroline (Miller) & Howard Caffee, date unknown.

Family and friends remember the couple as kind, friendly and always willing to help others. Howard raised Registered Holstein cows and was the field manager for Decatur Central Sugar Company from 1936-1941. The beet company closed in 1942. He was a good singer, played the violin and was a barber in Chattanooga, where he worked with Carl Schroeder. I was told that he cut hair on Saturday night so he would have money for the Sunday School offering.  He was very particular and ironed his own shirts and pants. Howard was confirmed at Zion on 6 August 1916 with Mrs. Frona Miller and Mrs. Maggie Bollenbacher, all adult confirmations.    

Caroline was my great-aunt, the sister of my grandfather, Carl Miller. She was baptized Karoline Christine Müller at Zion on 20 June 1893 with her parents as sponsors. She was confirmed at Zion on 31 March 1907 by Rev. George Haas. Caroline was the the organist at Zion in 1912 and was paid $38/year for playing the pump organ. Caroline liked to garden and enjoyed raising chickens. She kept her chickens as long as she was physically able, pulling their feed to them in a wagon.

 

 

Mar 23

V-mail from Germany to Willshire, 1945

V-mail from Herbert Miller, Germany, 1945.

I am a Charter Member and supporter of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. They recently sent me information about one of their programs, Operation Footlocker. Operation Footlocker gives school children across the country the opportunity to see and touch real World War II artifacts, while adding to their WWII education.

Each footlocker sent to a school includes items such as V-mail letters, ration books, dog tags, sand from the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima, wartime magazines, a cloth map, a US Army Foreign Language Manual, a Savings Bond Stamp Book, a gas mask, Philippine Occupation Currency, an American tank periscope, a 1943 steel penny, to name a few.

A footlocker can be kept at a school for one week and costs $50 for the 2011-2012 school year. The cost is normally $100 but is less right now because of a grant. Specific details about the program are on National World War II Museum’s website.

I have an actual V-mail letter here at home. My dad sent this letter from Germany during WWII to his aunt and uncle, Clara (Miller) and Wavil “Johnny” Reef, and his grandmother, Christine (Rueck) Miller. The V-mail letter:

To: Mr & Mrs. Wavel Reef
RR #1 Willshire, Ohio

From: 35845400
Pfc Herbert Miller
Co. L-333rd ?
c/o PM NY NY

May 23, 1945
Germany

Dear Aunt, Uncle & Grandmother,

It’s about 8 o’clock in the morning and I am going to try and write a couple of letters. They have been keeping us pretty busy around here, drilling & guard duty & etc. We have a schedule about like basic training.

I started to write you a letter last nite & can’t find the envelope & paper I had started on so I’m going to write a V-mail.

I imagine you have a quite a few of the crops out. How has the weather been, dry or rainy?

I don’t know what they are going to do with this Div., it will be either Army occupation or the Pacific. These are Rumors going around that we are going to the Pacific, ? we do will probably go to the states first.

Must close for now, am feeling fine & hope you are the same.

Love, Herbie

PS My camera takes B-2 film. Please send some. 

What exactly was V-mail? V-mail, short for Victory Mail, was a mail process used to correspond with soldiers stationed abroad during WWII. The process was created in 1942 to reduce the space and weight required to ship soldiers’ letters home. The process was based on the British Airgraph process.

It worked like this: The V-mail letter sheets were a combination letter/envelope and they formed an envelope when folded. Soldiers wrote their letters in a limited space and added the name and address of the recipient on the special stationery. V-mail stationery was about 7 X 9 inches and no postage was necessary. The letters were first read by military censors. After that they were copied to microfilm by the US Army Signal Corps. Each letter was reduced to about thumb-nail size on the film. The rolls of microfilm were flown to the US and developed at a receiving station near the addressee. The letters were enlarged and printed on paper at about 60% of their original size, or about 4 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches. The V-mail letter was then delivered to the addressee.

V-mail in envelope, 1845.

Reducing the size of the letters made space available for other war supplies. According to the National Postal Museum, “V-mail ensured that thousands of tons of shipping space could be reserved for war materials. The 37 mail bags required to carry 150,000 one-page letters could be replaced by a single mail sack. The weight of that same amount of mail was reduced dramatically from 2,575 pounds to a mere 45.”

The first Army operated V-mail station overseas was opened on 15 April 1943 at Casablanca, North Africa. Between June 15, 1942 and April 1, 1945, over 510 million pieces of V-mail were received from military personnel abroad and over 556,513,795 pieces were sent from the U.S. to military post offices.

There were a few other advantages of V-mail. It deterred espionage communications by foiling the use of invisible ink, microdots, and micro printing. None of those techniques could be reproduced in a photocopy. The process also allowed more letters to reach military personnel faster around the globe.

Evidently Johnny & Clara sent my dad the camera film he asked for. This is one of my favorite photos of my dad during WWII. He developed this photo himself while he was in Germany.

Herbert Miller, 84 Division, 333rd Company, "The Railsplitters", WWII

By the way, my dad is listed in the National World War II Museum’s Honor Roll of Charter Members on-line.

 

Sources of information:

Wikipedia: V-mail
National Postal Museum: Victory Mail
National Postal Museum: V-mail