Tracing family tree
becomes easier for
many on April 1
• 1930 census information becomes available after the proscribed 72-year waiting period.
BY PAUL EDWARD PARKER
Journal Staff Writer
WALTHAM, Mass. -- Walter Hickey threads his way through canyons of paper at the National Archives and Records Administration.
Old tax returns, federal court cases, records of declassified weapons experiments and millions of other pieces of paper are stacked on shelves 15 feet high.
Bank after bank of cabinets are wedged so tightly that the aisles between them are just wide enough for someone to walk.
Down one aisle, around a corner, through a door, down another aisle and around another corner, Hickey leads a visitor past the records that document the millions of immigrants who came to New England from Ireland and other foreign shores.
At last, he arrives at a microfilm storage compartment and removes a sheet protecting it from dust. The contents of the cabinet have been kept from the public eye for 72 years, but all that will change on April 1 -- and not a moment before.
"That cabinet absolutely will not be opened until after midnight," said Hickey, an archivist in Waltham. "It must be April 1."
The cabinet -- and two others like it -- hold the "population schedules" for the 1930 U.S. census. The schedules are the part of the census that -- at least in theory -- lists every man, woman and child who lived in the United States on April 1, 1930, along with where they lived, who was in their family, their age, marital status and national origin, among other details.
Whether they are the descendants of Irish immigrants, the scions of Mayflower passengers or anyone else whose family called America home in 1930, researchers will find a pot o' gold in the population schedules.
That makes April 1 an important day on genealogists' calendars.
"Most of us are just drooling waiting for it," said Patricia Wyatt, president of the Rhode Island Genealogical Society, which has about 900 members. "I can't tell you how important it is. I fully expect they'll be swamped."
Michael J. Leclerc agrees. "That very first day, there will be people pouring in to view that census," said Leclerc. "There will be a large number of people waiting to get in the doors that first night." Leclerc is a spokesman for the New England Historic Genealogical Society, based in Boston, which calls itself the nation's oldest and largest genealogical society.
To mark the momentous occasion, the National Archives facility in Waltham will make the census schedules available to the public at the first moment legally possible. "We're doing midnight madness," said Hickey. "We're opening at midnight Monday morning, April 1."
The Waltham facility is the only one that will open at midnight, making it the first place in the country that genealogists will be able to get their hands on the census data.
Archives employees are planning refreshments and a party atmosphere, but admit they do not know what to expect in terms of how many people will show up in the middle of the night.
IN 1992,
when the 1920 census was opened, not nearly as much hoopla surrounded it. That was, in part, because the debut was held at the Archives headquarters in Washington, D.C., before the regional facilities made the records available to the public. But, mostly, it is because genealogy, with a boost from the Internet, has skyrocketed in popularity over the last decade.
"It's just an explosive, ongoing, non-stopping growth," said Hickey.
"It's habit-forming, this thing is," said Rhode Island's Wyatt. "You've got to find another piece. You've got to put another name or line on your chart."
Though it resembles a library, the Archives reading room can be a place where mystery and suspense, adrenaline and tears meet.
"That's her!" and "I found him!" are common refrains, said Hickey.
"Every once in a while you hear, 'Oh, my God.' "
He added: "People do get into this. The thing that is almost the beauty of genealogy is that it truly is an Everyman/Everywoman hobby."
And the census is important to genealogists because Everyman and Everywoman is documented in the same detail, without regard to social status.
"The census records are one of the first places we tell people to go look," said genealogist Leclerc.
"Unlike most records, the federal census is the primary source for finding a whole family," said Wyatt.
THE BASIC UNIT
of the federal census is the household, the collection of all the people living in a single dwelling, whether that is a single-family house or one unit of a tenement building. Since the late 1800s, every member of the household is listed by name, along with that person's relationship to the head of the household.
The 1930 census collected economic, educational and cultural data about each individual. The information includes whether a family owned their home or rented and the value of the home or the monthly rent. Questions dealt with schooling and literacy, type of work and whether the person was unemployed, whether the person was a veteran and of what conflict, where the person and the person's parents were born and whether the person is an immigrant and a citizen.
"For the first time in our history, there was a technology question: Do you own a radio?" said Hickey.
Federal law requires the population schedules to remain secret for 72 years because of the level of personal information they contain.
Besides showing the intimate details of families, the census also places them in the larger picture. "You can see the family in the context of the community," said Hickey. "You can look at a community street by street."
The census can also provide clues to other records, such as where to look for a birth certificate or immigration and naturalization records, said Hickey.
Wyatt said that siblings identified on census records are important to genealogists looking to "climb the collateral tree." Often, an ancestor's vital records may be incomplete; a birth certificate, as an example, may identify the parents, but not say where they were from. Frequently, a sibling's birth record will contain the missing information.
The 1930 census is on 2,667 rolls of microfilm. That compares with 2,076 rolls for the 1920 census. In addition to that information, the 1930 census is accompanied by 1,600 rolls of indexes for several Southern states, compared with 9,000 rolls for the 1920 census.
"The 1930 census basically is not indexed," outside the South, said Hickey.
To locate families, a researcher needs to know a specific street address for cities, at least the name of the community in less populated areas.
The Archives in Waltham has 865 rolls of microfilm with street directories for the cities to help researchers locate addresses. City directories were not published for every location in 1930. Most small towns did not have directories and even some big metropolitan areas, such as Chicago and Brooklyn, did not in 1930. The collection of directories for New England is fairly complete, according to Hickey.
While researchers can use the directories at the Archives on April 1, it would be easier if they looked up the addresses before then.
It also would be helpful if they convert that address to an E.D. number. ("E.D." stands for "enumeration district," which was the territory covered by a single enumerator going door-to-door to collect census information.) Two Web sites are available to help with the conversion.
To find which E.D.s cover an entire community and what microfilm roll those E.D.s are found on, check: http://1930census.archives.gov.
The Archives also has maps showing the boundaries of the E.D.s. The quality of the maps can vary, so researchers are advised to familiarize themselves with a modern map of the city in question in order to locate the street on a 1930s map.
The Archives can also help researchers convert E.D.s from the 1920 census to their 1930 counterpart, if the family in question did not move.
If the Archives is crowded April 1, researchers will be limited to two hours each.
"For the novice, it's going to be a fairly easy process to access the data," said Hickey. "For the experienced researcher, this is going to be a piece of cake."
What's available:
Home ownership.
Education.
Employment.
Literacy.
Military service.
Country of birth.
How to get to the Archives:
Take Route 95 north to Exit 28A for Trapelo Road - Belmont. The Archives is on the right, about 2.8 miles down Trapelo Road.
Hours: The staff will arrive at 9 p.m. Sunday, March 31. Researchers will be allowed in before midnight, but will not have access to the census until then. The Archives closes at 4:30 p.m. Monday, April 1. The Archives is open 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Fridays
and Mondays after April 1, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, and 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, April 6.
