By Carol Darrow
The best starting place for your search for ancestors is Ancestry.com. It’s available for free to use at Denver, Aurora, Westminster and Jefferson County public libraries as well as at the microfilm reading room at the National Archives located on Huron St. one half mile west of I-25 and Hwy 7 north of Denver. There’s also a 14-day free trial available on your home computer.
Start with one of your grandparents and the 1940 U.S. census. On Ancestry, select SEARCH and the CENSUS and choose 1940 U.S. census from the U.S. Federal Census collection. Then enter your grandfather’s name and the county and state where he lived in 1940.
Click on the actual page and scroll down until you find the person you’re looking for. Congratulations! You’ve made your first discovery. But wait, there’s more! Information, that is. If they lived in a city, you will see the name of the street they lived on written in the left-hand margin. The first column of numbers next to the street name has the house number. Next you’ll see the relationship column. Your grandpa is probably described as the “head” of the household with the others living there are described by their relationship to him: wife, son, daughter, etc.
Census takers asked for the age, marital status, and birthplace of each person in the household, the highest level of education and the person’s occupation. They also asked where the family had lived in 1935.
Whew! That’s a lot of information in just one line of the census. It’s time to start collecting all those facts.
~ Carol Cooke Darrow, CG, teaches a free Beginning Genealogy class on the 2nd Saturday each month at the downtown Denver Public Library from 10 am – 2 pm.