March 10, 2012

Will You Be In The 1940 Census? - Part 1


MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2012 I'm On It, But Not In It. No, it's not a riddle. It's the 1940 United States Census. I am not old enough to be IN the census listings (I'll be in the 1950 Census, though when it's released in April 2022). But I'm ON the case for Indexing the 1940 United States census. (Randy Seaver)

The statement above comes from Randy Seaver's blog Genea-Musings.  Ever since I read Randy's opening comment on February 27th, I've thought about it quite a bit because not only am I on it but I am *in* it.  I have volunteered to help index the 1940 census with Family Search - You can help to index this census too.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to seeing exactly what is on this census about my family.  It is also supposed to tell us where our grandparents were born more precisely than in past censuses.  For instance, that means that not only would the census tell us the country (example:  Canada) it would tell us the town, village or city (example:  Ste Anastasie)  I know all of that but want to see what the census says.

Everyone is abuzz about the 1940 census.  Census records are released every ten years.  April 2, 2012 will make ten years the enumeration for the 1940 census began.  It also means that the 72 year privacy wait ends on that date.  No one will receive a copy of this census before April 2nd.  Not ancestry.com, not familysearch, no one.  This is why it is critical that as many as possible sign up to index so it can be done perhaps within six months.  How many indexers there are will determine the length of time it will take.  Because it is not indexed is also why I suspect the NARA site will crash shortly after 9:00 a.m. when millions of people try to access the NARA site for a first glimpse at the census.  I hope I'm wrong!

I attended a lecture about this census presented by Walter Hickey who has worked for many years at the National Archives, Waltham, Massachusetts.  This morning I also listened to a webinar by Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers fame .  Both pretty much said the same thing but I enjoyed the refresher provided by the webinar.

When the census is released you can access it on the National Archives Government site.  This is a blank copy of the 1940 census form:



The following questions were asked (from the NARA site):

Questions Asked on the 1940 Census
Many of the questions on the 1940 census are the standard ones: name, age, gender, and race, education, and place of birth. But the 1940 census also asks many new questions. The instructions ask the enumerator to enter an [a circled x] after the name of the person furnishing the information about the family; whether the person worked for the CCC, WPA, or NYA the week of March 24-30, 1940; and income for the 12 months ending December 31, 1939. The 1940 also has a supplemental schedule for two names on each page. The supplemental schedule asks the place of birth of the person's father and mother; the person's usual occupation, not just what they were doing the week of March 24-30, 1940; and for all women who are or have been married, has this woman been married more than once and age at first marriage.
The complete list of the questions follows:
Location:
  • Street, avenue, road, etc.
  • House number (in cities and towns).
Household Data:
  • Number of household in order of visitation.
  • Home owned (O) or rented (R).
  • Value of home, if owned, or monthly rental, if rented.
  • Does this household live on a farm? (Yes or No).
Name:
  • Name of each person whose usual place of residence on April 1, 1940, was in this household. Be sure to include:
    • Persons temporarily absent from household. Write "Ab" after names of such persons.
    • Children under 1 year of age. Write "Infant" if child has not been given a first name.
    • Enter X after name of person furnishing information.
Relation:
  • Relationship of this person to the head of the household, as wife, daughter, father, mother-in-law, grandson, lodger, lodger's wife, servant, hired hand, etc...
Personal Description:
  • Sex - Male (M), Female (F).
  • Color or race.
  • Age at last birthday.
  • Marital status - Single (S), Married (M), Widowed (Wd), Divorced (D).
Education:
  • Attended school or college any time since March 1, 1940? (Yes or No)
  • Highest grade of school completed.
Place of Birth:
  • If born in the United States, give State, Territory, or possession. If foreign born, give country in which birthplace was situated on January 1, 1937. Distinguish Canada-French from Canada-English and Irish Free State (Eire) from Northern Ireland.
Citizenship:
  • Citizenship of the foreign born.
Residence, April 1, 1935:
IN WHAT PLACE DID THIS PERSON LIVE ON April 1, 1935? For a person who, on April 1, 1935, was living in the same house as at present, enter in Col. 17 "Same house," and for one living in a different house but in the same city or town, enter "Same place," leaving Cols. 18, 19, and 20 blank, in both instances. For a person who lived in a different place, enter city or town, county, and State, as directed in the Instructions. (Enter actual place of residence, which may differ from mail address.)
  • City, town, or village having 2,500 or more inhabitants. Enter "R" for all other places.
  • County.
  • State (or Territory or foreign country).
  • On a farm? (Yes or No).

Persons 14 Years Old and Over - Employment Status:

  • Was this person AT WORK for pay or profit in private or nonemergency Gov't. work during week of March 24-30? (Yes or No).
  • If not, was he at work on, or assigned to, public EMERGENCY WORK (WPA, NYA, CCC, etc.) during week of March 24-30? (Yes or No).
If neither at work nor assigned to public emergency work. ("No" in Cols. 21 and 22).
  • Was this person SEEKING WORK? (Yes or No).
  • If not seeking work, did he HAVE A JOB, business, etc.? (Yes or No).

    For persons answering "No" to question 21, 22, 23 and 24.
  • Indicate whether engaged in home housework (H), in school (S), unable to work (U), or other (Ot).

    If at private or nonemergency Govt. work. "Yes" in col. 21.
  • Number of hours worked during week of March 24-30, 1940.
    If seeking work or assigned to public emergency work. ("Yes" in Col. 22 or 23).
  • Duration of unemployment up to March 30, 1940 - in weeks.
Occupation, Industry and Class of Worker:
For a person at work, assigned to public emergency work, or with a job ("Yes" in Col. 21, 22, or 24), enterpresent occupation, industry, and class of worker. For a person seeking work ("Yes" in Col. 23): a) if he has previous work experience, enter last occupation, industry, and class of worker; or b) if he does not have previous work experience, enter "New worker" in Col. 28, and leave Cols. 29 and 30 blank.
  • Occupation: Trade, profession, or particular kind of work, as frame spinner, salesman, laborer, rivet heater, music teacher.
  • Industry: Industry or business, as cotton mill, retail grocery, farm, shipyard, public school.
  • Class of Worker.
  • Number of weeks worked in 1939 (Equivalent full-time weeks).

Income in 1939 (12 months ended December 31, 1939):

  • Amount of money wages or salary received (including commissions).
  • Did this person receive income of $50 or more from sources other than money wages or salary? (Yes or No).
  • Number of Farm Schedule.

Supplementary Questions 35-50:

For persons enumerated on lines 14 and 29 [about a 5% sample of the population]
  • Name.
For Persons of All Ages:
Place of Birth of Father and Mother
If born in the United States, give State, Territory, or possession. If foreign born, give country in which birthplace was situated on January 1, 1937. Distinguish: Canada-French from Canada-English and Irish Free State from Northern Ireland.
  • Father.
  • Mother.

Mother Tongue (or Native Language):

  • Language spoken in home in earliest childhood.
Veterans:
Is this person a veteran of the United States military forces; or the wife, widow, or under-18-year-old child of a veteran?
  • If so, enter "Yes."
  • If child, is veteran-father dead? (Yes or No)
  • War or military service.
Social Security:
  • Does this person have a Federal Social Security Number? (Yes or No)
  • Were deductions for Federal Old-Age Insurance or Railroad Retirement made from this person's wages or salary in 1939? (Yes or No)
  • If so, were deductions made from (1) all, (2) one-half or more, (3) part, but less than half, of wages or salary?
Usual Occupation, Industry, and Class of Worker:
Enter that occupation which the person regards as his usual occupation and at which he is physically able to work. If the person is unable to determine this, enter that occupation at which he has worked longest during the past 10 years and at which he is physically able to work. Enter also usual industry and usual class of worker. For a person without previous work experience, enter "None" in column 45 and leave columns 46 and 47 blank.
  • Usual occupation.
  • Usual industry.
  • Usual class of worker.
For all women who are or have been married:
  • Has this woman been married more than once? (Yes or No)
  • Age at first marriage.
  • Number of children ever born (do not include stillbirths).

Symbols and Explanatory Notes

Column Number
and Heading
Codes UsedCode Meaning
Column 10:
Color or Race
W
Neg
In
Chi
Jp
Fil
Hin
Kor
White
Negro
Indian
Chinese
Japanese
Filipino
Hindu
Korean
Column 11:
Age at Last Birthday
11/12
10/12
9/12
8/12
7/12
6/12
5/12
4/12
3/12
2/12
1/12
April 1939
May 1939
June 1939
July 1939
August 1939
September 1939
October 1939
November 1939
December 1939
January 1940
February 1940
Column 14:
Highest Grade of
School Completed
0
1 to 8
H-1 to H-4
C1 to C4
C-5
None
Elementary School, 1st to 8th
High School, 1st to 4th year
College, 1st to 4th year
College, 5th year or more
Column 16:
Citizenship of
the Foreign Born
Na
Pa
Al
Am Cit
Naturalized
Having First Papers
Alien
American Citizen Born Abroad
Columns 30 and 47:
Class of Worker
PW
GW
E
OA
NP 
Wage/Salary Worker in Private Work
Wage/Salary Worker in Gov't Work
Employer
Working on Own Account
Unpaid Family Worker
Column 41:
War or
Military Service
W
S

SW
R

Ot
World War
Spanish-American War; Philippine
Insurrection or Boxer Rebellion
Spanish-American War & World War
Regular Establishment or
Peace-Time Service
Other War or Expedition

Tomorrow I will explain how you can find your family in the 1940 census once you know the ED (Enumeration District) number where your family was living if you know where they were.

All Rights Reserved
except for NARA information
Lucie's Legacy
Lucie LeBlanc Consentino

March 8, 2012

The iPad and Power Point Presentations


After purchasing an iPad2 the day after Christmas, I wanted to learn how to use it at its full potential.  I'm not there yet but certainly am getting there.

One day when speaking with our daughter Sarah I told her how
I  l-o-v-e my iPad but wished I could use it for Power Point Presentations.  She said I could as someone at work had done so about a week or two earlier.  The search began to find out just how this could be done.

At first I found SlideShark, a free app, that looked like it could do the job.  I gave it a try.  While it seemed to work well I did not like that in converting my presentation it changed some things - I won't go into that here since that really isn't the focus I want to share at this time.

The same afternoon, my friend Gerry Savard posted a message on Facebook that I should try the *Keynote* App.  I did a search and everything I read about it sounded good.  What I especially liked was the fact that I could also download the *Keynote Remote* to my iPod Touch and use it as a remote control during my presentations.  I learned all that I could about it online especially at apple.com. Everyone seemed quite happy with these two apps.

Having done my homework, I decided that before I purchased *Keynote* app for $9.99 and  *Keynote Remote* for 99 cents that I should go to the Apple store to confirm that this would work very well and satisfy my needs when setting up and when presenting a Power Point presentation.  So armed with what I had learned in those few hours, I packed up my iPad2 and my iPod Touch and headed to the Apple store.

When I arrived at the store I checked in, I explained why I was there and that I wanted someone to show me how this would all work with the iPad and iPod Touch. (This is what you do when going to the Apple store for help.)  I was put on the list and about ten minutes later someone was available to consult with me.

He told me how great  the *Keynote* app is but said *Keynote Remote* did not work with the iPad.  Ah ha!.. and this is why it pays to do your homework.  I told him I had done my homework and that the Apple site said it did work with the iPad.  He pulled up the Apple site and was so excited by this news that he immediately loaded the app to his iPhone.  After his excitement he showed me exactly how it all worked.  I then went to the App store with my iPad and purchased *Keynote* for my iPad and *Keynote Remote* for my iPod Touch.  He then watched me as I duplicated what I had seen him do on the store iPad, etc.  I didn't want to have any doubt about how this worked after leaving the store.   [*Keynote Remote* app works with the iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone].

In order to do Ppt presentations with the iPad on a projector, it is necessary to buy a VGA adapter at the Apple store ($39.99). Loading one of my presentations to *Keynote* was easy and the conversion kept my presentation intact and made no changes as it had on SlideShark.

After playing with all of this for a few weeks I still had not tried this with a computer projector and thought I should give this a try before doing a presentation in real time.  I contacted Gerry who is president of ACGS and asked him if it would be possible to try it with the society's projector.  He was happy to accommodate and a couple of other interested people/members came along.

What I immediately realized is that I should purchase a VGA extension cord like the one on the projector.  I had wondered where I would be able to place my iPad given that the VGA adapter is short.  This is a great solution. With the extension cord you can have the iPad in front of you in a safe place.

iPad connected to the projector and presentation up on the wall/screen next we wanted to see how well my iPod Touch would work as a remote.  It was *perfect*.  The presentation shows up on the iPod Touch (or iPhone) either one or two slides at a time depending on whether you choose portrait or landscape mode.  It works so well that I was able to go out in the hall and change slides - nice!  This meant there was plenty of range.  Too, the room we were in is a conference room and quite large.

We did this using WiFi.  Next Gerry put settings on both devices on Bluetooth.  As he said, everywhere I go will not have WiFi.  This is where we ran into a problem.  My devices would not connect and they should have.  We put everything away and Gerry did a search on the Internet and found that IOS5 had some kind of "bug" that caused the devices to not always connect with Bluetooth. In my case they would not connect at all.  He found an app called Bluetooth Photo Image that I downloaded (free app).  It worked well at ACGS but then would not work quite as well when I got home.  Dilemma and chagrin!

The new iPad had been unveiled earlier in the day so I decided to go take a look at that all while charging my iPod with my PC.  As soon as iTunes opened there was a message that the IOS5 was going to be upgraded to IOS5.1 - I did a search and the upgrade was to correct certain "bugs" in 5.  As soon as the iPod was upgraded I connected the iPad to upgrade the IOS.  I then tried connecting using Bluetooth and I am very happy to say they connect!  Tried it a few times last evening and again this morning and the connection works just fine.  Dilemma and chagrin all gone!

To do Power Point presentations with your iPad (all models) you need to do the following - click into the App store and purchase

1. Keynote App for your iPad

2. Get Keynote Remote for the iPhone or iPod Touch (won't work with earlier models of iPod).

2. Go to the Apple Store and purchase the VGA adapter.

I highly recommend you purchase your own VGA extension cord - under $10 for a Belkin on Amazon.

I'm enthralled with the idea that I can travel to do presentations without lugging around my laptop and its accessories.  Nice to travel light.

I've not spoken yet where there is no WiFi and I always ask when being booked for a talk.  When there is, I have duplicates of my presentation in DropBox and another on my PC at home.

Using SplashTop on my iPad (about $4.99) and SplashTop Streamer on my PC, I can access my home computer from anywhere.  I would never go out to speak without a back up plan for my presentations.

When  there is no WiFi connection available, I will work out a back-up plan when the time comes.

As Gerry mentioned in his comment below - something I forgot to say - is that another reason you would want your iPad close to you is that you can user  your finger as a laser pointer if you place it where you want to point on your presentation.  So when I want to point out a particular spot on a document, I just place my finger on that spot and it shows up as a pointer on the presentation.

That's the scoop - it was fun to try this out and now I am eager to do it in real time.  I recommend this to anyone doing presentations.  Be daring and give it a whirl - get the most out of that iPad, iPod Touch and/or iPhone.

My thanks to Gerry for all his help.  If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

I love technology and as everybody knows *I  L-O-V-E  MY iPAD*!!!!

Soon I will put together a workshop entitled "Technology, Genealogy and You". Stay tuned

MARCH 17, 2014 UPDATE:

1.  Apple updated its KEYNOTE app so that remote is built in so that it is no longer necessary to purchase Keynote Remote.  That said, I have no plan to purchase a newer iPod Touch that I presently use for my remote and the new Keynote cannot be loaded to it as it is not the latest iOS.  Nonetheless, the remote should continue working as it has always.  Because Apple is discontinuing its use does not mean it will not work if you already have it.

2.  I have no plan to ever own a Smartphone so I have purchased an iPad Mini with cellular.  That will solve the problem if ever I need to retrieve data and there is no WiFi where I am speaking.  You must tremember to turn off cellular when doing your presentation unless you need it during your talk.

3.  When purchasing an extension cord, I got a 10 foot but should have a 20 foot cord. You never know how far you will be from the projector.  That said though, when using a remote for your presentation, you can change slides from anywhere in the room so it depends on where you want to be during your talk.



4.  I did put together a workshop entitled  "Technology, Genealogy and You".  It is a beginner's workshop so anyone with a vast techie knowlede might not be interested.

All Rights Reserved
Lucie's Legacy
Lucie LeBlanc Consentino