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Subscribe to RSSUpdate, 5:40 p.m. ET: The firm at the center of today's census records meltdown says, "We were expecting a flood, but we got a tsunami."
"We had estimates of how much traffic was going to hit the site, and we did performance testing at several levels above that, but we were surprised by the traffic," Joe Godfrey, senior director of product and general manager for Inflection, a Silicon Valley database company."
Inflection was hired by the National Archives and Records Administration, which provided the 1940 census records. Inflection buiilt the search engine to serve up the records, and relied on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) as the cloud service provider. Inflection has been adding more of a pipeline to Amazon all day, adding the ability for more simultaneous connections, but so far searches for census records are running slowly or not running at all for many users.
The company is trying to serve up 3.8 million images of census documents, each with multiple views at different zoom levels, with each file being 10 megabytes or larger.
Godfrey said the situation has improved, and engineers are hoping by the end of today to have the situation squared away.
Earlier:
Embarrassed by a computer system that crumbled under public demand, the National Archives and Records Administration said Monday that it's working to add more servers for the release of 1940 Census records. For more users the wait to see records on family members from the Great Depression era will go on for a while longer.
The Archives had hired Inflection, a Silicon Valley database company, to run the computers, but frustrated users lit up Facebook and Twitter with complaints about images that were said to be "loading" but never arrived.
"Our testing indicated NARA and Inflection could handle the load, but 1.9 mil visitors caused issues we're working to resolve," the Archives said via Twitter. Later it added, "We'll let you know as soon as we have another update - thank you for your patience, we know it's incredibly frustrating."
Even agency officials, during the webcast to kick off the day, couldn't get images to load when they tried to look up their own relatives.
In Springfield, Ohio, Facebook user Val Lough commented on our page: "It's very sweet of them to put all of these records on line. It would be even nicer of them to make the records VISIBLE. None of them will download, I have a browser window opening that's 'loading' the documents and has been for about 20 minutes. You might want to find out what their issues are. It would be faster to mail a public records request to the National Archives." Many others are tweeting about delays.
The National Archives says it is putting more servers online to handle the crush. At one point, the Archives said, its computers were receiving 100,000 hits per second.
Hey, you've waited 72 years to see these records, so what's another day or two.
Earlier:
A time capsule from 1940 was opened on Monday at 9 a.m. ET, and we invite readers to share what they find. If you use the new records to find information about the loved or lost in your family, please post a note in the comments below or on our Open Channel page on Facebook.
U.S. Census records for individuals from April 1, 1940, protected until now by a 72-year privacy law, are now public for the first time, revealing details about millions of Americans from that day, as the country lingered in a Great Depression, still a year away from entry into war in Europe and the Pacific.
"I'm so excited!" Gary Robert Del Carlo of Martinsburg, W.Va., posted on Facebook. "Maybe for the first time ever, I'll be able to find out something about my father. All I have is my birth certificate with his name, date of birth, state born in, and that he was in the Army stationed in Washington State. His military records burned up in St. Louis in a fire in 1973. They would have told me a lot. Wrote for his birth certificate, and there was no records of his birth. I have done nothing but hit brick walls every which way I turn. I'm praying I find something useful tomorrow, anything."
NPR describes the release as the "Super Bowl for Genealogists." Librarians around the country are ready to provide assistance. At the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, the staff will be serving cake and providing help.
When the 120,000 census takers counted 132,164,569 people living in the country on that day, the information collected included the address, whether the house was owned or rented, value of the home or monthly rent, is it considered a farm, names of adults and children, familiy relationships, sex, race, age, place of birth, citizenship, residence five years earlier, education. And for a small subset of people, about 5 percent, they were asked about place of birth of mother and father, language spoken in the home as a child, veteran status, wars served in, Social Security status, occupation, employment status, occupation, number of weeks worked in 1939, income and, for women, whether they had been married more than once, age at first marriage, and number of children ever born.
There is a catch. As the records go online, they can't be searched by name. For a city it's helpful to know an exact address, but often you can work with a neighborhood (near the corner of Canal and Varrick streets in New York City). Your public library may have old city directories or telephone directories from that period, allowing you to look up people by name to find an address. For a rural area, you need to know at least the county and the name of the town or township.
Genealogists, librarians and volunteers will begin the work of indexing the records, which eventually will allow searches by name. Two sites, the commercial Ancestry.com and the Mormon Church's FamilySearch.org, have announced plans to provide indexes to their customers as quickly as possible, with some images going online on Monday. FamilySearch and Ancestry.com started putting images from the Census files online early on Monday, but for now without a name index.
For now, you must know at least an approximate address to get started. You use that address to find an "enumeration district," which in a big city might be only a few blocks, and would be a larger area in a small town.
Another approach, for those interested in a specific place, is to look at all the records for your block or street. If your area was settled in 1940, who lived there then, and what were their lives like?
Your goal: With that district number, you can look on the Census website at the online copy of the form filled out by the census taker in 1940. In 70 years, it has gone from paper to microfilm to computer.
Here are resources to help you with the search (links open in a new window), though as with most things in life, the key is: Ask a librarian.
- Most important page No. 1: Step-by-step help from private researchers with free aids to help you find the enumeration district map for a particular address
- Most important page No. 2: A Census explainer on starting your search.
- The home of the 1940 Census
- A Census page with general information on the 1940 release
- A copy of the 1940 Census form (PDF file) that you can fill in when you find information
- Census aids to finding information
- Ancestry.com, a commercial service for genealogists
- FamilySearch.org from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- Tell us what you find: Post your story on Open Channel's Facebook page
Leave a Comment:
Lived in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania with my grandparents, Joseph & Elsie Janik, 108 W. Laurel St., Schulkill (SP?) county. They were immigrants from Poland in the early 1900's. Owned a grocery/butcher shop 'til he passed away at 93. They had 5 kids, my dad, John, was the oldest. Would be interested in checking the census to read about them.
ED codes 54-146, 54-152, 54-156 for the address you gave. the release only happened a few min ago.
Chef80, thanks for helping out by posting the ED codes. A helpful spirit!
El Classico: My Great-grandparents started out in Shenandoah from Lithuania and Italy in the late 1800's. Check out this link to the Pottsville Library when you have time: . It even has a link to Shenandoah newspapers from May 1891 - Dec. 1899! Believe it or not you can read those newspapers right from your computer! I've spent hours just from that alone. Good Luck looking at your family's history! Jim Sarra.
No problem Bill, i was looking in PA for my Grandparents from both sides anyway so changing the county and city wasn't an issue. FYI current map of Laurel St show it is just a loop at the end of two streets and there is only 2 main buildings on the plot of land. Not sure if that was the whole street in 1940...
If they came to the USA in 1900 they should show on the 1910, 1920, 1930 and 1940 census. The census asks different questions every 10 years. Yes the normal name age and where you were born but in 1900 and 1910 it also ask the women how many children they have had and how many are still alive. Since 1880 they have also asked where your parents were born? Best of luck.
For the guy who couldn't find his fathers birth certificate. More people were born at home then. My grandmothers four had birth certificates one didn't. the middle child didn't have a birth certificate. My mom used his baptismal certificate Catholic to apply for his SS death benfits. So check the church records too.
It's now 2012 and they are just releasing 1940 cencus records?
72 years bscol...that's the law.
I think in 1940 my ancestors were all on Devils Island LOL
Having had the family history bug forever census records are a gold mine. While I have not had a chance to dig into the 1940 census yet, every census is great at finding clues. My direct lines came from Germany in 1740 and hve that line with documentation to 1645. However there are other lines/branches where census record provided clues thru household members and neigbors. The most difficult thing sometimes is reading the census workers handwriting.
My branch has been the same house for almost 115 yrs. Alas, I am the last of the Mohicans so to speak my kids will be hitting the road to fill their destiny-for the best probably.
Wasn't the best time, for my grandmother. My grandfather had died the year before, and hadn't left a large "nest egg". My mom was only 7 years old. This may have some telling clues about a time in my family's story.
I've been waiting for this census. It will be the one where my mother finally shows. It will allow me to fill in more detail of you early years, since she was very ill for years before her death when I was in my early 20s.
Ancestry.com has been advertising this census for the past year. Only now are they providing the details about how much of the census is actually ready to be viewed. Right now, very little of the information is ready to research.
1.8 million records are not going to be digitalized over night...
Wait a bit for them all to come on-line. Then you'll probably wait a bit more for them to be indexed. Or, you can do it the old fashioned way...search line by line at your local history museum...
This will hopefully help me to find out some info on my mothers side of the family. She was born in '36. Would really like to know where my grandparents or great grandparents imigrated from. All I know is i've got Dutch and Danish from that side.
My father's military records also burned up in the 1973 Military Archives fire. They lost most of the WWII records. We were lucky and were able to recreate them through letters home that my grandmother kept.
Since I don't research family history and such, why is the 1940 census so important per se? Is it because the last one would have been the 1930 census, which, I assume, would have been released in 2002?
Are people specifically looking to the 1940 one to see income statistics or population demographics attributable to the Great Depression? The rise of Hitler in the mid-30's and immigration to the United Stated? Military service? Is the preceding decade regarded as a time of fast urbanization? Or is it simply the fact that since the census is only taken every 10 years it becomes very important?
Any info is appreciated.
It's not the statistics, but the individuals. The statistical results from a Census (we're talking here about the every-ten-years, or decennial, census) are released over the next few years, so we've had 1940 facts and figures for decades.
But privacy laws keep the information on individuals under wraps for 72 years, so that's why only now are we able to look up what individual people told the census takers in 1940. So the importance of this release is that it helps people look up relatives who were in this country then.
My way of thinking - I have waited THIS long and stilled lived a good life - I think I can wait a little longer. The images; once on the internet, will always be there. Just have some patience folks. ~ chill ~ Everything will work out.
The 1940 census asked people where they were living 5 years ago. If your ancestors moved around a lot that can give you important information about their location. The census asks about employment: your job and industry, how many weeks you had worked in the previous year, and what your salary was. It also asks the highest level of education you received. A surprising number of people never went to high school, let alone college. It gives you an idea of the era and specific information about your family history
It's a good idea, but I'll give it a try in a couple weeks when things quiet down. Right now, it's clear that the computer servers can't handle the load.
Wait just a minute - this is the FEDERAL, taxpayer funded National Archives that you're complaining about being too slow. You are all going to vote GOP this year to reduce spending by federal government and fire all those government workers. That means fewer people, cheaper equipment, less equipment. How do you think all of this is funded? The Archives are slow now because of having poorer equipment than the private corporations you worship.
Well said!
I watched the kickoff at the National Archives this morning. A gentleman from familysearch.org said that they had 300,000 people ready to start indexing these records, and he said they need another 200,000 volunteers. it is unrealistic to expect the Census Bureau to index these records themselves; we ordinary citizens need to help. Maybe the next time Congress wants to cut the budgets of the National Archives and the Census Bureau, you will take 5 minutes and contact your congressional representatives and object.
Computer systems are the biggest part of the national debt. The FBI alone spent $450 billion dollars on their Sentinel System. The FAA spent 2.1 Billion dollars on a flight tracking system and that's just one system. These systems have priority over the Archives.
These are just two "small" projects that have had cost overruns, delays, and problems.
The Archives have to make do with what they have and we just need to be patient. If they need help then anyone with time available should go and help them. I'm a bit too far from Atlanta to help.
$450 BILLION? Please provide a link to the source of that number.
I believe you meant, $450 Million, or $100 million over budget and still not close to finished, according to the Huffington Post.
Not that I lend that much weight to the Huff and Puff Post, but I believe that was the source of the incorrect quote above.
Perfect! Another US government boondoggle. In the intervening 72 years, the Census Bureau has been unable to index the records by name.
Those of us who have no addresses, maybe a city at best, and a family name, are left to twist in the wind. Oh wait! I can PAY some private service to deliver my FREE information. Like the banks, the CB is too big to fail. Well, it gets an F from me.
who peed on your pickle peter?
Actually, Mr. Pickle, you'll get your free index, if you can wait a bit. Several nonprofits are teaming up with the Archives to create just the sort of name archive you desire. (Unless your actual desire is just to make sour noises or to turn this into a political debate.)
Well said, Mr. Dedman
What did we EVER do before computers...oh wait...WE LOOKED IT UP OURSELVES...you know, that personal responsibility (not entitlement) thing everybody keeps talking about...
I figured out my grandparents' enumeration district, but the instructions seem to end after you find that information. The site only seems to have a description of the districts' boundaries and an image...and it has displayed "Preparing Image" for ~20 minutes. Will keep trying. Very poor user experience so far.
Yes, Joy, there's an interminable wait. Eventually, you'll be able to click on that enumeration number and it will, finally, finally, give you an option at the upper right to "download." That's the ticket. Insead of waiting for the images to load, you download them. Even waiting for that is slow.
Man, I love living in the Information Age. The average American has a better understanding of the world around them at age 18 than any human being in the world at the time their country was founded. Anyone born in the developed world has immeasurable knowledge at their fingertips, and it's only going to get better, too.
Bill, Swell of you to take the government's side. My comment was not political (your assumption), or just to make "sour noises", what an asinine thing to write. I made a valid, critical observation.
The Census bureau has had decades to index these records by name. Through times when the government was swamped with cash, and leaner times; yet this obvious task was left undone. It does not require some huge amount of insight to understand that the maximum value of these records is to be able to search them by name. Yet, the obvious task is overlooked by the bureaucrats in control of the records.
So, feel free to defend this level of incompetence Bill, while attacking me. I think your doing so speaks more about where you believe your butter comes from than you realize.
Someone's feeling entitled to a free Government name index.
The reason the Census Bureau didn't make a socialist name index is because they never received legislative authority from Congress to do so.
Mr. PP (P.Pickle).....Does ANYTHING make you happy? Or do you find fault w/ every thing & every one?....Must be nice to live in a perfect world...I personaly wouldn't know...I find the world is a PERFECT mix of imperfections...& like another said; you've waited 72 yrs...give it a break!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is also because there is a 72 year wait for a reason. Do your research first. And yes - you were trying to turn this political. So just chill and wait. Real family historians/genealogists are just a bit more patient. You have to have government funding to do a EVERY NAME indexing for the Census. That takes a boat load of money. Do you really think anyone would of voted for that? Nope me either. So just be patient and wait. There are a lot of volunteers out there who are willing to help. YOU can volunteer if you want to 'put the rush on'.
Thanks, Mr. Pickle. Sure, nothing political in here: "Like the banks, the CB is too big to fail."
It's not "defending the government" to point out that the mandate of the Census Bureau (that is, the task it's funded for) has never been to provide records on individuals.
Dear Bill,
Please keep up with current events, "Too big to fail", is now part of the street lexicon, not so much political as observational... and not at all partisan.
So, in your view, defending is not defending. The CB mission has "never been to provide records on individuals." Would that be due to the fact that this is the first time there has been a release of individual census data?
It seems to me that you are so overwhelmed with gratitude for the mere fact of the data release that your critical faculties have been suspended. Sort of begs the question of what led you to news reporting in the first place? Maybe PR would have been a better career choice.
No, Mr. Pickle, this isn't the first time there has been a release (by the Archives, not the Census) of individual census data. We have 1930, 1920, 1910... This is the first release of individual data from the 1940 Census.
Have a good day.
Bill - Thank you for your input regarding this story. I, along with others have waited for this census data to be released as part of my family tree research. I have relatives in earlier census records that we have lost track of after 1930 and now when these records become totally available on line, I should be able to do more research on them. I think Peter Pickle is just being a sour puss. He should also realize that some states held their own census recording every 5 years along with the Federal Census every ten years since 1790. I use Ancestry.com for my family tree research and when there are still living people in the mix, even though they may be relatives, their privacy is maintained unless the actual tree owner that includes those living persons gives me permission, I cannot see them. There are many other records on line such as burial records, marriage records, birth records that help genealogists do their research. So I ask Peter Pickle to just back down a little bit and be patient. Not everything happens in one day. It will take time for all this data to be presented to the public.
peterpickled? Another keyboard crybaby. Doesn't matter what is done there is someone crying.
Actually the Mormon church is a nickname for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. There is no actual church called the Mormon church.
So, people over the age of 72 don't have a right to privacy?
Well said JohnV - this was nagging at me the whole time I was reading the article. I was thinking that we should at least wait until everyone listed is long gone, but in fact I wonder if this info needs to be released at all. We are guaranteed privacy when we fill out the census - privacy shouldn't end when you're dead.
I'm not sure I agree with the "right to privacy" JohnV and Lisa '69.
My mother was born overseas. In her country, it was a legal requirement that births and deaths be recorded in a timely manner by the local government. Two witnesses were required--usually close relatives. Records are not suppressed; they are searchable for any reason at any time--just lie tax records.
All this data was invaluable to me in my family history research.
I should also direct interested parties to the LDS Family History Center closest to them. I'm not a Mormon, but grew up in Salt Lake City and I have a great respect for their incredible work on amassing genealogical material.
My great-great grandfather was buried in an unmarked grave in a Pennsylvania cemetery in the late 1800's. Had it not been for the LDS archive's note of his death in a Prebyterian church's records, I would've never been able to place the gravesrone he deserved.
Keeter, Thanks for your reply; I don't have a problem with the sorts of info you mention which are in fact a matter of public record, but I am concerned about such things as who was living with whom, employment status etc., especially for people who are still with us.
Of course the reason why the Mormons are interested in everybody's genealogy is so they can baptize them once they are dead.
Hhhuuummmm....Bill, looks like a lot of peeps have some pent up & miss applied anger.
Heres one for ya guys, ya want to have some real fun???? try doing a search on indian history. We, yes I am an American Indian; we were considered being worse than any race. ALL of our records were changed to suit the white man. But then again our "privacy" is realy being protected.
Not altogether unlike the Racial Integrity Act in Virginia in the 1920's where everyone was either 'African' or 'White'. A rather insensitive and arrogant means of further diminishing the importance of the many tribes in North America. The great thing is the tribes have paitence, tremendous patience; I hope your tribe survives this current nonsense.
Why didn't they just call Google and say, "Hey, can you help us with this?". They likely would have thrown a dozen or more engineers and a server farm (the size of a warehouse) at this, just to be involved.
Hey, Everyone. Be careful using the link marked no. 1 it completely crashed my computer and caused a fatal error. I was able to recover from it, but I certainly will be staying away from that link. I ran a virus scan and nothing was wrong, but still be careful.
thats the problem, they used servers instead of a mainframe. These geeks will never learn.
And while u are at it, look for Obama's birth certificate?
I am in no way a fan of Obama, but let's move on from the birth certificate. And just so you know he isn't old enough, for it to be in the availabe census data.
I agree that they didn't prepare enough computing power and / or bandwidth to keep up.
As for Obama's birth certificate, you won't see that in this records for a number of years. Unless he is actually 72 years old :)
JB - do you seriously still have your panties in a bunch over that dang birth certificate? Dude, LET IT GO. Sheesh.
All of you sure he's not 72 years old? Prove it!
Oh and just a fact, sheriff in Arizona proves the current copy of birth certificate is a forgery!
jb - Sheriff Joe in Arizona is a crackpot. He hasn't proven anything because his "POSSE" of birth Certificate hunters is not a legal entity and in their so-called search for the President's birth certificate would not be able to access the Birth records in Hawaii. Sheriff Joe is a standing joke in the law enforcement community. You right wing jerks believe everything you hear. Get a life and join the real world. Just goes to show by your comment that you're just another white supremacist who can't abide a black man being President of the United States.
I don't think the government needs to tell us anything more than this article has already stated. That in 1940 there were 132 million people living in America. Today 2012 there are over 312 million living in the U.S.A. So in 72 years we have added 180 million people to our country. I think all the social scientist will have great fun with this number that we have greatly more than doubled our population in America in a short 72 years. Is it Sustainable? What is the effect on our natural resources? What will the future look like in 60 years with 1/2 billion people living in America? Has our enviroment been affected? What does this mean for food production the availiablity of clean water just in our country. This is America where we increasingly use more and more of the world's resources.
Dear Richard, Since there are 312 million of us in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, why do WE let 545 people, who are mostly idiots, RULE US? WE outnumber them by a ton so why don't WE do something about them? Since 1940, things have gone downhill. No doubt about it.GREED is the answer and in the case of this administration, a person who is not interested in the welfare of ALL but just the welfare and I mean WELFARE of some. Mainly minorities. Or, should I say, used to be, MINORITIES? This guy is a NUTCASE.
CONCERNED AMERICAN, Larry VELASCO
FamilySearch.org is not accurate.