Hi everyone, I just heard that the 1930 census is due to be released on April 1, 2002. *yippee* (heard this on C-SPAN)! _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx

S.F. O'Donnell wrote: > I just heard that the 1930 census is due to be released on April 1, > 2002. *yippee* (heard this on C-SPAN)! That's the good news :-) Unfortunatly, there is some not-so-good news, too. California isn't indexed. Only 12 southern states are fully or partially indexed. It's going to be much more of a challenge to find our folks than for some previous census years. Here is the url for NARA's information page on the 1930 census release: http://www.nara.gov/genealogy/1930cen.html One section I highly recommend you pay special attention to is Part 5: Tutorial: "Start Your 1930 Census Research Now!" As I announced in February, NARA in San Bruno has been offering 1930 census workshops. I attended one of them, and found it to be very helpful (believe me, this census is not going to be an easy one to use, so we'll need all the help we can get!). The "Preparing for 1930" workshops have all passed now, but there will be several "Census Research Including 1930 US Census Records" workshops in April, May and June. If you're in the SF area, I highly recommend you try to attend one of them. For the list of workshop dates for NARA in San Bruno, see: http://www.sfo.com/~timandpamwolf/nara2002.htm At the workshop I attended, we were advised that NARA expects pretty large crowds for the first several months at least, so they will most likely strictly enforce the two-hour limit on microfilm readers. If you read the online tutorial mentioned above, you'll see that there are several things you might be able to do in advance of your trip in order to save yourself precious minutes on the microfilm reader. I honestly think that if you show up without having done any preparation, you will come away very frustrated and dissapointed at the end of your two-hour time limit. I highly recommend you do whatever you can in advance as outlined in the tutorial! If you aren't in the SF area, but are near another NARA branch, check with them to see if they're offering any similar workshops. You might also check with your local genealogical societies to see if they plan any seminars/workshops. I don't want to seem to discourage everyone, but after having attended one of these workshops, I can't stress enough that the 1930 census for the unindexed states is going to be difficult, and will take some know-how and preparation in order to use them effectively. But then, genealogists don't often shy away from such challenges! I'll bet those jubilant shouts of "I FOUND THEM!" will just be all that much louder in research rooms all over the country as we search for our families in this census! :-) Good luck and have fun everyone! Pam psw@sfo.com -- Pamela Storm Wolfskill The USGenWeb Project, San Francisco http://www.sfo.com/~timandpamwolf/sfrancty.htm