Finds in the 1940 Census

When the 1940 U.S. Census was released in digital form earlier this year, I used the 1930 Enumeration District converter by Steve Morse to begin locating grandparents and my parents. As each state was indexed in entirety, it became much easier to find relatives. Now that Ancestry has the complete 50 state index (and Familysearch is not too far behind), I wanted to see how many of my aunts and uncles I was able to find.

The verdict: all but two out of 8!

My paternal grandparents, Loyd and Ella Amore, are empty-nesters living at 1236 Vine in Tuscarawas Township in Coshocton County, Ohio. (I had previously written about this find at Census Saturday – 1940 Census Finds). Of their seven children, I located my dad and 4 of his siblings. My dad was stationed at Patterson Field (now Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) outside of Dayton, Ohio living in the Enlisted Men Barracks. His oldest sister, Gertrude, and her husband, Walter Shackelford, along with their two children resided at 611 Larzelere in Zanesville, Ohio.

611 Larzelere Ave.
Zanesville, Ohio
Source: Trulia, Neohrex

My dad’s other sister, Marie, and her husband Robert Werkley, are lodgers in a household at Morristown in Morris County, New Jersey. Both are involved in the Salvation Army.  His brother, Paul, is living in Plymouth, Wayne County, Michigan and his other brother, Bervil, is living with his wife and family, in Jackson Township, Coshocton, Ohio.

I am still looking for my dad’s other two brothers – (William) Gail Amore and Norman Edgar Amore.

My maternal grandparents, Glen and Vesta Johnson, as well as my mother, Mary, were enumerated in Fairfield (present day Fairborn), Greene County, Ohio, living at 40 Ohio Street.

40 Ohio St, Fairborn, Ohio (house on right)
Source: Trulia, @2012 Google

Besides my grandparents and mother, occupants also include my uncle – Glen Roy Jr., and my newborn brother, Jim. My grandparents had a family of lodgers living there – the Theodore Fern family.

My mother’s sister, Genevieve, was found as a nursing student at Miami Valley Hospital located at 134 Apple Street in Dayton, Ohio.

Miami Valley Hospital, Dayton, Ohio
Source: Esco Communications

The next people on the 1940 U.S. Census who I want to find are the siblings and their children of both sets of grandparents. I’ve already made a pretty good dent in that list.

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Mobile Monday – Kindle Fire

For Christmas last year my wonderful husband gave me a Kindle Fire which I have put to very good use!  I knew that I could access the web, play games and read books on it but little did I realize that there were some pretty good apps as well.

One of those was Ancestry – I have synced the Fire so all of the trees that I’ve uploaded to Ancestry are visible. Another app that took awhile for it to be available was for WordPress. Since this blog is on that platform, I can now blog “on the go” or from the comfort of the couch! 

During RootsTech 2012 earlier this year, I attended some of the live streaming sessions, scanned Twitter, and read blogs from those who attended in person. Several made reference to a program called Evernote. I had to check it out, and boy, am I sure glad I did!  I have it on my Kindle Fire and my desktop so I can “share” files on both.

Another app that I have gotten a lot of use out of is Adobe. I can email genealogy reports, biographies, and downloaded google books to my Kindle email address and then open in Adobe as a .pdf file. Wow! It’s available for me to read at any time at any place. 

Yesterday, I noticed a new app for another social media site that’s gained more and more in popularity – Pinterest! Yes, you read that right so if you have not grabbed that app yet – go do so! I was able to access Pinterest via the web on Kindle but it just didn’t “flow” in a readable manner. With the app installed, the website looks just like it does on my desktop! If I find a photo of a place my relatives, family or ancestors lived, I can “pin” it instead of trying to remember to do it from the desktop at a later time.

I hope Familysearch comes out with an App for the Kindle Fire too!  Especially to transcribe records! 

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Tombstone Tuesday – Anna B Sheild

My grandfather took this picture of friend, Mary Lou Sowers, at the gravestone of Anna B Sheild, wife of W.H. Sheild. It was at the family cemetery at Moore House, Yorktown, Virginia. Even though the surname is familiar – these are not the Shield’s who married into my Johnson family. I believe one of the reasons this photo was taken is because of the incorrect date etched into the gravestone of February 30 – the last time I checked, February never had 30 days!

For more information about Moore House, please refer to Moore House – Yorktown National Battlefield (or just google it!).

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