1940 US Federal Census
US 1940 Census
Image Icons
Census Form
Data Entry Icons
Data Entry Area
Project Help Tabs
Note the Project Help tabs in the lower
right hand corner of the program.
Before indexing any project, click on the Project Instructions tab and read the
project instructions. Be sure to scroll down. At the bottom of the information you
will see links to other important information.
The option to “Click here for a summary of project updates” opens a page on the
FamilySearch wiki.
The message box on the Project Updates page (outlined in
red) will notify indexers of current information.
On the Project Updates page are four tabs. Click here to
see how to navigate the wiki pages. (Be sure to check out
the How to Library.)
Field Help
The directions for indexing each field are shown in the Field
Help section. To activate the field help, click on the Field Help
tab. When the field is selected during indexing, the
instructions for that field will automatically be displayed.
Image Navigation
The gray Image Navigation rectangle shows how much of the image is
visible in the program window. Click the gray rectangle to move it
around with your mouse to view the entire document. The Quality
Checker will be discussed later.
Start indexing by filling out the Header
Data in the Data Entry Area.
There will be no
Duplicate images in this
project.
Click the drop down arrow to see a list of options. Carefully read the Field
Help then choose the correct Image Type.
The image type selected will be displayed.
Next, fill out the Sheet Number and Letter- found in
the upper right hand corner of the document.
This information is recorded only once for the entire batch.
Press Enter or Tab to move to the Data Entry Screen.
Now you have the option to select either Table Entry or Form Entry.
Table Entry allows you to see several records at a time.
With Form Entry you see
the information for only
one record at a time
Let’s look at how the document is indexed using Table Entry
First enter the line number and press tab or enter to move to the next field. The
highlight will move to the area of the document that corresponds to the field you are
indexing. If the highlights need adjusted click to learn more.
This is what the indexed batch would look like.
All entry lines need to be accounted for. If an entry line on the census form is blank
or has no data to be indexed, mark the record as blank in the data entry area.
Quality Checker
When the last record has been indexed, the Quality Checker will start automatically. If
the highlighted entry is correct then click Accept. If it was indexed more than once,
you can speed up the quality check by clicking Accept All. If, however, you are unsure
whether what you have entered is correct or not you can double check. Look at the
document and if you still have questions . . .
Look up List
To check the spelling
of a name click the
down arrow and
Lookup. This feature
can be used at
anytime during the
indexing process.
Enter what you are sure of . . .
Note-Not all names will be in
the authority list. It is a help.
If what is on the document is
not in the list- enter what is
After the quality check is completed, you will be asked on the document.
if you want to submit your batch. Congratulations!
You have just completed your batch.
The following slides have additional
Instructions for:
 Retrieving Household Numbers and Surnames
from the previous image
 Required Fields
 Marks of Repetition with explanation of
Residence Fields
 Blank lines
 Using Program Icons
 Things to remember as you index in this project
Retrieving a household number or surname from a previous image
Click the Previous Image Icon at the
top of the program window.
Use the scroll bars on the previous image window to navigate
to the needed information from the previous image.
Required Fields
• Some of the field names have an asterisk (*) in front of them. This indicates a
required field. Before the batch can be submitted each required field must contain
information or be marked <Blank>, indicating there is nothing to enter. To mark a
required field <Blank>, use Ctrl+B or click the “Mark the field blank” icon.
• If the field is not a required field and there is no information for it, press Tab or Enter
to skip the field. In this project the only field not required is the Title or Terms field.
Marks indicating information to be repeated
These lines indicate the previous information should be repeated.
Other marks of repetition such as “DO”, ditto marks or a vertical
squiggly line may be used. When indexing indications of repetition,
enter the information that precedes them.
In this case the surname Carruth would be entered for Mindy S, Peter
W and Olive J
However A straight line or dash in the City or Town of Residence on April 1, 1935 does not
always indicate information to be dittoed. It can be an indication that the
information is for a child less than 5 years of age. The residence fields would be
marked <Blank>.
The purpose of this information was to track population movement between 1935
and 1940. Let’s look at how this field would be indexed.
Provo
Utah
Utah
<Blank>
<Blank>
<Blank>
<Blank>
<Blank>
<Blank>
Same House
<Blank>
<Blank>
Same House
<Blank>
<Blank>
Oakland
Contra Costa
California
Same House
<Blank>
<Blank>
The Data Entry area defaults to 40 records, but some census pages have fewer
than 40 records. All entry lines need to be accounted for. If an entry line on the
census form is blank or has no data to be indexed, mark the record as blank in
the data entry area. Be sure to mark it as blank in the same order as it appears
on the census form. To mark a record blank, press Ctrl+Shift+B, or click the
“Mark the record blank” icon
All lines must be accounted for. Lines that do not include a name are marked blank.
Note the line number is also marked <Blank>.
Image Toolbar
This icon takes you back to the My Work page
This set of icons allows you to resize the image for better view ability.
You can also enter a value in the % box not in the drop down list.
This icon makes the image a negative.
Clicking this icon brings up a box
where you can adjust the
brightness or contrast of an image.
This icon lets you turn the
highlights off and on.
This icon opens a secondary
viewer so the previous image is
visible in case you need to capture
the Number of Household or
family Surname from it.
This icon rotates the image 90
degrees right or left.
Data Entry Toolbar
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11 12 13
14 15 16
The program has a row of icons above the data entry area. Here is a quick summary of the
purpose of each icon. The numbers in the list apply to the icons from left to right.
1. Save your work
2. Submit your work. This icon is helpful if the option to submit a batch is not given after
you’ve completed the quality check.
3. Cut—after the work in a field is highlighted, clicking this icon will delete it.
4. Copy information that is highlighted.
5. Paste information that has been copied.
6. Undo—removes work just entered.
7. Redo—restores work accidentally removed. This icon can be very helpful if a large
amount of work was accidentally deleted. (Ctrl+Z will also work.)
8. Allows you to add diacritic marks when needed.
9. Handwriting helps.
10. Mark a field blank.
11. Mark a record blank.
12. Mark a field unreadable.
13. Mark a record unreadable.
14. Insert a line above another record (helpful when a name has been skipped).
15. Insert a line below another record.
16. Delete a line that is not needed.
Things to remember as you index this project –
Names
• Do not expand names that have been abbreviated, such as Wm to William.
Type what is on the document.
• Index any middle initials in the given name field.
• If punctuation, such as a hyphen (-) or an apostrophe (’), is normally part of
a name, type the punctuation. Otherwise, do not. Do not type a period
after an initial or abbreviated name.
• For help with:
• Catholic Nuns or Fathers click here
• Names from various cultures click here
• Spanish names click here
Things to remember as you index this project –
Locality
• With a locality field the rule is to correct the spelling or expand the abbreviation
if you are sure what the correct word is. If a birth place is recorded as CanadaFrench or Canada-English, index only Canada.
• When you index the residence fields, you should correct misspellings and expand
abbreviations, if you can do so accurately, but don’t try to correct what may seem
to be factual errors. For example, if “Oakland” was recorded as the city of
residence and “Contra Costa” as the county (rather than Alameda), index Oakland
in the city field and Contra Costa in the county field.
• If “Same House,” “Same Place,” was recorded in any of the residence fields, type
just what you see in the City or Town of Residence on April 1, 1935 field, and
mark the county and state of residence fields blank.
• If “R or Rural” was recorded type what is on the document.
• If multiple levels of locality were recorded in column 15 (place of birth), index all
levels in the order they were recorded, separating each level of locality with a
space. For example – Albany New York or Paris France.
Things to remember as you index this project
• As a general rule “type what you see” or index exactly what is written on the
document. The only time we don’t follow this is the previously stated rule about
places. If you cannot read all of a word, enter what you can read using a (?) for one
unreadable letter. For multiple consecutive unreadable letters use one (*).
• When information is crossed out and the clerk wrote replacement data, type the
new data into the appropriate fields.
• When information is crossed out and not replaced but you can read what
was crossed out, enter the crossed-out information.
• When the information is crossed out, not replaced, and cannot be read, mark the
field as <Unreadable> by pressing Ctrl+U.
• At times you will see notations written after a name such as Ab, or a circle with an X
in the middle. These notations are not indexed.
• If a relationship was recorded as “Wife-H” in column 8, do not index the –H; just type
Wife in the Relationship field.
• The line number in your batch may begin with 41.
Things to remember as you index this project
continued
•
If the household number field was left blank on the census form and the census
taker recorded a new street address in column 2, mark the household number as
blank; do not copy the household number from the previous household. Do not
confuse the house number (which is recorded in column 2 of the census form) and
the number of household (which is recorded in column 3 of the census form). In this
project, you will index only the number of household—the number in column 3.
• If T is all that is recorded in the household number column mark the field <Blank>
• If relationships in column 8 were abbreviated and you can determine what the
abbreviation stands for, type the complete word instead of the abbreviation. (For
example, type Daughter if "DAUG" was recorded in column 8).
• If any titles or terms, such as Mr or Mrs, were included in the census entry, index
them in the titles or terms field. Type titles or terms exactly as they were written in
the census entry. For example, roman numerals (such as "V," for 5th), should be
indexed in the Titles and Terms field, exactly as they were written in the census entry.
Some additional helps:
At times there will be two people recorded on one
line or an extra person added at the bottom of the
sheet making it necessary to add an additional
line.
Click one of these icons to add a line above or below
the current line.
Some helpful information can be found at the bottom of the form.
At times you will download a batch that appears to be out of
order click here to learn more.
The most important tool to use to help you correctly read the records is the document
itself. You can also access the previous and next image to compare letters.
How would you index this initial?
Watch for letters that
carry down from a
line above. The above
name is Owen B
By comparing it with other known words on
the document we can see it is an H.
Notice the unique
y’s- by comparing
they are easier to
read.
Notice the p in Joseph-that
would help decipher the
surname in question.