Residents Show Big Interest In 1940 Census Records

The Census Bureau recently released records from the 1940 census and the information has many people curious as to what they’ll be able to find.

So many people logged onto the Census Bureau’s website when the information was first released on Monday, that the server temporarily crashed.

Ned Sweat, Director of the LDS Church’s Family History Center in Idaho Falls, said the popularity and interest in the 1940 census doesn’t surprise him. He said this census offers the most recent information for those looking to trace their family history.

SLIDESHOW: Snapshot Of America: 1940 vs 2010

“To find, say, your grandfather — his parents would be listed in the census and he would be listed as a child and then that extends the link and you could go back into the older census and link up in that manner,” said Sweat.

For Idaho Falls resident Mike Aldena these and other prior census records are helping him trace his family history all the way back to the 1800s. Aldena said he’s been researching on and off for the past two weeks and recently found information on his paternal grandmother’s side of the family.

“We didn’t really have a lot of information about her, so I had to do some digging, and that’s what I’ve been doing here,” said Aldena. “It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and now is the right time to do it.”

“It’s kind of like reading a book in the middle –you have no idea what went on in the past,” said Sweat. “I think there’s a natural interest for people to find out what and who they were.”

The U.S. government released the records on Monday, after the 72 years of confidentiality expired. There are about 132 million names included in the 1940 census, an increase of 9.1 percent from the 121 million people listed in the 1930 census.

Anyone interested in learning tips on how to trace ancestry is invited to stop by the Family History Center.