Category: Resources

Getting Ready for 1940: the Todds on Tioga street

This is the first in a series about my preparations for the release of the 1940 census on April 2, 2012.

With no index available at release date, the 1940 census presents some challenges for the genealogist. My great-grandparents, the Todds, will hopefully be the easiest of my ancestors to find. I have an exact street address for them and there is a high likelihood that they were living at that address in 1940.

Todd 1930 census
1930 census

John A. and Olivia R. Todd were living at 2075 E Tioga street in Philadelphia in 1930 according to the census of that year. They were also living there in 1920.

1942 John A. Todd Jr draft card
1942 draft registration

In 1942, John A. Todd, Jr. lists his mother as the “person who will always know your address” on his draft registration card for World War II. She is still at 2075 E. Tioga street.

With an exact address, how do I narrow down my search to one or two enumeration districts for the 1940 census?

Steve Morse has a tool for Obtaining EDs for the 1940 census in one step (Large Cities).  First, I select the state, city and street. That leads to over 40 enumeration districts. I must add cross streets to narrow it down, but I am not that familiar with Philadelphia, so I head over to google maps:


View Larger Map

I add Frankford and Amber and narrow it down to two enumeration districts: 51-1881 and 51-1884. If I add Atlantic, only one enumeration district is returned: 51-1884. I’ve decided to start with that one and if I can’t find them I’ll search for them in the other as well. Further research on their children revealed their eldest, Frank A. Todd, should be in ED 51-1881 so I will be searching that one anyway.

With an exact address and a helpful tool on the internet I was able to narrow my search from a city as large as Philadelphia to a single enumeration district. My other ancestors won’t be as easy and I will detail my preparations for a few of those in later posts.

Pennsylvania Awesomeness

It is not often that Ancestry adds information that is useful to me. I have moved beyond census records for the most part, and the smaller databases they have been adding have not been in areas I research.

Well, not to be a shill for Ancestry, but they have added a boatload of Pennsylvania BMD & other data recently. Partnering with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, they have created the Pennsylvania Church and Town records database with more than 7 million records, including church (birth, baptism, marriage, death & more), cemetery and undertaker records. In a quick search, I found marriage information for distant ancestors and baptisms for my grandfather and great-grandfather. One marriage confirmed a maiden name that I had assumed, but for which I never had any proof. My great-grandfather’s baptism was in German, which I thought was cool. I will be posting more on these finds and others.

It’s always fun trying to find a particular database on Ancestry. Here’s how to find this one:

  1. In either the regular ancestry.com or the Ancestry Library edition (check with your local library), select Card Catalog under the Search  drop-down menu
  2. In the Title field, type in Pennsylvania Church and Town Records and click Search
  3. Select it and you are on your way

Some things I discovered in my brief usage so far:

  • There are some records from New Jersey. I found some Burlington county records. [Update: And Camden, Gloucester, Cumberland counties. I hear there are some Maryland records as well.]
  • If you are looking for a particular county, enter it under location for Any Event. That way you’ll get births, marriages, deaths and the ‘others’, which include things like church memberships and bible/Sunday school class rosters.

Historical Society of Pennsylvania page on the partnership