The whole index!

I'm a little behind in posting this but Ancestry has announced that the whole 1940 census has been indexed. Why Illinois had the honor of being one of the last states indexed I don't know. But finally I can attach all those 1940 pages! I've made it through the Kampfert/Scheifelbien family and will move on to the Bills next! So far everyone is right where I expect them to be. Which is nice, but isn't part of genealogy the excitement of surprises? :-)

1940 Census

I just received another update from Ancestry about the indexing of the 1940 census. They now have 25 states indexed. Unfortunately Illinois isn't one of them. I've found some of my family already because they hadn't moved or hadn't moved far from their 1930 residence but there are some missing yet.
Family search looks to have 27 states up and running. Illinois is 72% complete!

Family Reunion??

In case it wasn't already obvious that I'm a genealogy geek, here is how I spent part of my Saturday!

Oops, I found What I Wasn't Looking For

Genealogy research is full of  hints that seemingly lead nowhere and searches that give no results. When you find that special nugget of new information it's worthy of celebration. So when you find something by accident I think it deserves extra celebration. I logged onto Ancestry the other day to look up a birth date since I wasn't at home to have access to my full database. I happen to glance at the Member Connect Activity list and saw a name I didn't recognize had added a census record for one of my great grandfathers siblings. Out of curiosity I clicked on the "View in tree" link. And to my delight, the above picture appeared! The baby on his mother's lap is my great grandfather. I have seen pictures of him as a young man and pictures of his father much older than here. This picture was taken in mid 1892 and may be one of the oldest pictures I have of my family (so far.) Not a bad little accidental find in my opinion!