1940 Census–Joseph Worrell Strode

312 Price Street shows up in the 1930, 1940, and referred to for where the family lived in 1935. Joseph Worrell Strode is my 1st Cousin, twice removed.

As the house is today (04/20/12)

1940 Census–Franklin Brinton Strode

311 South Walnut Street was listed with this family in 1920, 1935, and 1940. It’s also on the same street that will appear as other family members over time

Franklin was a 1st Cousin, 2 times removed on my mother’s side of the family.

The house is across the street and less then half a block from where my mother’s parents lived, when I knew them. I may have actually been inside of this house.

1940 Census – Ellwood Palmer Strode

This is the first in a series of blog posts of Photos relating to the 1940 Census.

Here is the 1940 Census for this household:

There is a couple of issues here: The wife’s name is not Louise. Louise was not 45 at the time. I will find the wife, my mother, elsewhere in the 1940 census.

Two people are missing, my grandmother and my aunt, as can be seen in the 1930 Census.

Mary L Million was a maid in 1930 and was confirmed to be by my mother before she passed away.

I confirmed with my aunt, that she was still at the above address in 1940, as she was in high school and living at home.

Here is a photo taken in 2012 of that house as recorded in the 1940 Census. Will have to work to get a better one.

However, here is a picture of the same house in 1929, which would be just before the 1930 Census as reported above.

Next to the house is a barn and this was taken in 1938, just before the 1940 Census.

In 1999, the barn looked like this.

Successful 1940 Census House Picture trip

Having spent a lot of time doing manual scanning of the 1940 Census, recording the data found, and noting street addresses when provided, We took a  “day trip” to West Chester, Pennsylvania.

I had a spreadsheet of 28 houses with street addresses from the 1940 Census. With my assistant, note taker, we roamed the streets taking pictures of the houses.

Of the 28 Addresses, 4 of them, we didn’t have time to get to, due to the distance, and it was a day trip. BUT, I also already have pictures of them. 4 of the 28 we could not locate. It may be that the house numbers changed between 1940 and 2012. We came home with 20 of the 28. Not bad.

But, we picked up 3 other houses, that I wanted to capture/

Stopped at two Cemeteries, but that’s another story, and the Church where I attended as a kid, but that will also be another story and blog post here.

Over the next couple of days, I will post this photo’s, along with the Census information and some information about the families who lived in these houses.

More to follow:

Tech Tuesday – Pennsylvania Death Index – Follow Up

Yesterday I posted a new, to me, resource:

Pennsylvania Death Index

I thought that I would update how to use the website. As mentioned, they use a Russell Soundex for finding people. The fine print on the Russell Soundex Method of Indexing for this website is for Death Record Years: 1920 through 1924 and 1830 through 1951.

I created a Custom Report to help me with that, and here is a sample of that report:

The three records in the red box, WILL use the Russell Soundex. The listing before and after will NOT. Sorting the report by Date was very helpful with finding the Records, as they are grouped by year in the Pennsylvania Death Index.

Finding the records in the PDF file is relatively easy. For example, I was looking for Florence Hoopes Hart. She died in West Chester, Pennsylvania on 19 Nov 1959. So, I selected 1959. This s NOT a Russell Soundex year, so I didn’t have to worry about that.

Once in 1959, I selected H-I-J, as her married name was Hart, an used the down arrow to page 45, which was page 905 of the document.

What was important, for me, about this record is that a cousin, Florence’s daughter, has been looking for birth information about Florence. I am hoping that this record will help my cousin obtain more information about her mother.

Lesson Learned: Don’t be afraid of looking at new record groups and take a few minutes to read and understand how to use them.

A special thanks for the state of Pennsylvania in allowing us access to these records. I have found 14 of 15 people so far and about 20 to go.