The federal government has just released the 1940 census records for public consumption.
After 72 years the records are being made public because it seems that most featured in the census are no longer alive to protest any invasion of their privacy.
The records would provide a great look back into history, if you could search them by name, however, that functionality will take a while to implement. To search the records now, you will need the address/es of your loved ones in 1940 and can conduct a search by location.
I'm lucky, I inherited a box with several old letters and postcards of many family members and have access to addresses galore. I was able to locate the records for one grandmother, long since deceased, but with the news of the records being released, the site is running excruciatingly slow and has timed out on me with every subsequent search.
I have a feeling the release of these records will fuel another wave of interest in genealogy as I have already noticed, while doing a simple search for an old uncle's address that there are several more ancestry tracing sites available.
The ability to search the census site by name will not be available for several months and while I have a definite advantage in having the great amount of information that I do, if the site can't handle the traffic, my searching will have to wait.
That's probably a good thing as I could see myself easily getting engrossed in the site and the information available.
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