This is from the Blog - Ancestry Insider Joseph Martin Romeoville, Illinois Blogger Dinner: Help Index the 1940 Census<http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/AncestryInsider/%7E3/WPtk4Er9EsU/blogger-dinner-help-index-1940-census.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email> Posted: 02 Feb 2012 11:05 PM PST “A national service project is what we’re organizing,” said Don Anderson of FamilySearch. Archives.com, brightsolid, and FamilySearch sponsored a dinner for RootsTech bloggers Wednesday night and one subject was predominantly on their minds: 1940 census. Anderson is FamilySearch senior vice president of Patron Services. His support organization utilizes 250,000 volunteers, 110 phone lines, and provides 24x7 support anytime, anywhere in the world, and in any of 30 languages. The National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) will release the 1940 census to the public on 2 April 2012. I understand that images will be available immediately on www.archives.gov. (Archives.com<http://www.archives.com/>won the contract with NARA to host the images for them.) FamilySearch and its partners, Archives.com <http://www.archives.com/> and brightsolid, ( see “1940 Census Consortium<http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com/2012/01/1940-census-consortium.html>”) will post images on their websites as quickly as possible. (My money is on Ancestry.com <http://www.ancestry.com/> beating them.) Then FamilySearch will engage its volunteers to begin the long task of indexing. They will need to add 100,000 indexers to complete the project, so they want everyone to sign up. (See https://familysearch.org/1940Census.) FamilySearch’s partners have provided funding as part of the partnership. “If we can use only volunteers,” said Anderson, “then the money will be used to produce more records.” Volunteers will be able to select batches of records from states of interest. Initially, only some states will be available, but eventually all states will be available. FamilySearch will publish completed state indexes once a month. -- People are funny. They want the front of the bus, the middle of the road, and the back of the church.