Wednesday, August 5, 2009

I don't know if I'll ever forgive her...

(This is my maternal grandmother, the oldest, with her three
younger siblings. Now, if I could only find them on the census records.)

Who? My dear friend, T, who hosts Generations Gone By, a genealogy blog that is really all about life with a little genealogy throughout. Why am I holding a grudge against her? Simply because I SPENT TWO HOURS LAST NIGHT on Footnote, playing with their free access to the Federal Census of 1930. Seriously...do you know how cool that is? You can find grandparents and great grandparents. The great thing about census records is they also provide the names of other members of the household, as well as place of origins for the parents of the person of record. So, if you find Great Grandpa Jim, you can discover that his mother was from Ireland and his father from New York, giving you more information that might have had otherwise.

This free access is available to everyone, not just people T is trying to drive mad! Curious? Head over to Footnote and drive yourself mad, lose two or three hours, and end up with new questions you didn't even know to ask.

Gee, T, thanks!

9 comments:

Clark said...

OMG! Not another distraction! Aren't squirrels bad enough?

Tootsie said...

wow...what a neat idea...but I think my OCD little self will skip this distraction! lol

Andrea said...

Hope you are able to find your ancestors soon. I found some I was looking for on ancestry.com in the census records.
Blessings, andrea

Melissa Henning said...

wow this sounds cool and I would totally use it if i had some info to search from :). Ill pass it onto my MIL. She might be able to do something w/ it :) :)

Anonymous said...

You are so very welcome! I am to please. You think two hours is bad, I've been doing this since 1990. LOL And I still haven't found Susan Markham in 1870, born circa 1840s who would have had a 4-6 year old daughter named Jennie Caldonia or some varient thereof.

The cool thing about the 1930 census is that most of us can find our grandparents. A few of us a parent. My father will be on the 1940 coming out in 2012. I can't wait! Of course, it will take a while for it to come online, get indexed etc. but I will be in line when it does. I want to find the little boy he talked about so fondly that lived next door. If I can find the grown man, I am going to write him a letter and tell him how much my father admired him as a child. If not, it will be fun to see dad on the census. Dad is no longer alive, but at least I will get to see it.

Oh, and I totally don't consider it a distraction. It's a way of life, sorry Clark. This no squirrel.

Carin said...

that is really neat, wonderful picture! I may have to check it out. And baking cookies in a car, wow, that's hot!

Unknown said...

oh my... I really don´t need to lose more hours. sorry. ;) But I love the picture!

Unknown said...

Doesn't the aunt (I have no idea which one she is) that is standing next to Grandmother look like me? And I thought I mostly took after my Mom's side of the family. Weird!

Erin said...

I cannot believe how long I've spent on the computer today. This is horrible!