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We look for a married couple. Using names only and no location such as the state, we get one result for the entire country. The names are somewhat common.
How inclusive was the census?
Could there be three John and Jane Doe's and only one turns up in the census?
What are the reasons someone was not shown on the census?
Such as: Lived way out in a rural area, not home when the census taker came to visit, did not send in the census form.
Any others?
1) As the 1940 Census is the most recent Census opened for public viewing, perhaps everything hasn't been properly recording in various public databases or perhaps names have been incorrectly recorded from the written paper lists;
2) Perhaps some people decided just not to participate in the Census (this is purely anecdotal, but I have several neighbors who refused to take part in the 2000 Census because they "don't trust" the government).
In the 1940 Census I am missing my father's family. I know from other records, and an uncle's memory, the exact address they lived at and have looked at the on-line images, and they are not there. Tried various name mis-spellings too. They are in the 1930 Census.
My guess is they just were not home (work and school), neighbors were clueless, and enumerator did not go back to re-check.
Re the 2000 (or 2010) Census, the Feds already know all your basic info. All they are looking for are updates and corrections.
Names did get mangled in the indexes. But I did have difficulty in a few 1940 searches. Maybe the search engine index was done in a different manner.
If people were not long term renters or homeowners they could have been missed--if away from home that week. Especially in large cities I could see how this could have easily happened.
On some occasions I have found the family enumerated at the grandparent family residence because they were visiting either short or long term. Lots of times I have found individuals counted twice in family relative households. Census takers seemed to have been diligent. I have found entries at the end of the census form that were out of order due to being missed the first time. Your quarry might be at last page.
Look at the WWII draft cards for any male members of the family. They will list residences and you can check those areas in census. City directories can help determine residence in time period.
If you'd like to post, people here will take a look. Sometimes it just takes fresh eyes. Put all you know about family members. I have many times found the tricky to track families by inadvertently finding one of the children.
Last edited by historyfan; 12-20-2014 at 04:03 PM..
Reason: clarity
I have found so many errors in the 1940 census, Ancestry should be paying me for all the corrections I have made. The transcription has been the worst I have ever seen! And not only with names, but with relationships to the head of the household. I am not surprised in the least that you can't locate someone! Ridiculous...!!!
When someone's stuck, I usually offer to take a look so if you don't want to post personal information, I would be more than happy to take a stab at finding them if you want to PM me with any info you have.
We look for a married couple. Using names only and no location such as the state, we get one result for the entire country. The names are somewhat common.
How inclusive was the census?
Could there be three John and Jane Doe's and only one turns up in the census?
What are the reasons someone was not shown on the census?
Such as: Lived way out in a rural area, not home when the census taker came to visit, did not send in the census form.
Any others?
Theoretically the censuses were entirely inclusive of everyone in the nation, that was sort of the point of it. But some people did fall through the cracks. It could have been an error on the enumerators part, or the individuals could have deliberately avoided enumerator. They may have been in the middle of a move and not picked up on the census because of it. If no one was home when the enumerator came by then the enumerator was supposed to return later and try again but theoretically, if they went back multiple times and couldn't get a response and their neighbors couldn't provide the info, they may have been missed for that reason too.
There could be multiple people by the same name but only one turns up on search results because the name was recorded incorrectly or indexed wrong, or they were never enumerated to begin with.
In the 1940 Census I am missing my father's family. I know from other records, and an uncle's memory, the exact address they lived at and have looked at the on-line images, and they are not there. Tried various name mis-spellings too. They are in the 1930 Census.
My guess is they just were not home (work and school), neighbors were clueless, and enumerator did not go back to re-check.
Re the 2000 (or 2010) Census, the Feds already know all your basic info. All they are looking for are updates and corrections.
I share your frustration. I had an uncle with a very common name, drop from sight between the 1930 and 1940 census. Cannot find a death record either, so I'm rather stumped about then he died. I was born in 1948 and never met him.
I was lucky. I've been trying to figure out what year my grandparents were divorced. No public records show up but he remarried so I'm sure it was official. But on the 1940 Census, he and his second wife are listed as married, and married in 1935. She and my mom and aunt live where my mom grew up. It asks if she was married in 35, its checked, crossed out and the word 'divorced' written over it. I know they were married in 33, from an official listing. I don't know what was going on in my grandma's mind, or the ennumerator misunderstood, but given the bitterness I wonder if she didn't want to talk about it.
Mom eventually reunited with her father. She was 18, but her sister was younger and never did.
The idea of mailing forms was supposed to overcome the 'not home' problem. Unforutnately, the job of organizing was massive, even on a local basis, and my friend who was working for them got tired of being sent to the same place four times.
Then there were the repeated visits I got. I mailed it in. But there are several lots. I explainded what my address is and they said I was listed for some other one. Turns out each LOT has a listing. I could have counted for two people. Maybe I should have listed the squirrel family and the occasional cats who like to stay in the shed.
They also drove down a road and assumed if there was a structure it matched an address. But my friend had to check, if possible each of these storage rooms, half collapsed barns, etc, were 'habitated'. Eventually she just said no if it didn't look like it. If there was a big fence, barking dog and no evidence of someone going to watch the dog and open the gate she just said they weren't home. The way property was listed, with many homes/farms/businesses covering more than one lot made it a huge mess.
Hopefully in 2020 they'll have records and nobody will keep coming back saying you still need to send in a form.
I think the 1940 census had a pretty good inclusion rate, though every now and then people are missing from them....names sometimes get mixed up in the indexes and Soundex (which relies on the first three letters)...have you tried various spellings of this name? Forein names often got misspelled, though even common surnames sometimes were misspelled enough so to be indexed way off from what they should had been (like if the first letter was incorrect, such as "Hale" being written down as "Ale"---that will throw off the index and search so to not render proper results).
When all else fails, you can do a page-by-page search if you know the city (or even neighborhood in a city/town) they might had lived in....I had to do that with one ancestor of mine in the 1850 census: I found him after many pages of searching (as I knew the town he lived in)...the reason why he did not come up in any searches for that particular census was the enumerator had witten his name as "Findley" instead of "Lindley"---the first letter will throw off the index the most. But of course sometimes, for whatever reason, people were not included, either by error or due to deliberately avoiding the census. But, if they show in 1930, there's a reasonably good chance they (or one of them anyway) participated in the next. Sometimes searching for neighbors from the previous census (and known family memebers) can yield results too.
Different gen companies must have used different transcribers, because I've found people listed on the 1940 census on Family Search, but not on Ancestry, and vice versa.
If you can't find them on Family Search, than try Ancestry.
I've found so many errors on the 1940 census index. I think they all rushed to get it transcribed & went for quantity rather than quality. Each one wanted to get their index on-line first.
Do you know their address in 1940? You can locate the address on the census by using: Unified Census ED Finder
I've also found people listed under completely different spellings on the Ellis Island Database verses Ancestry's EIDB index.
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