By law, US Census data must be kept private for 72 years after being collected. That means that the 1940 Census data is now available. But this is the first time that the data has been published online. Previously the data has been available only via microfilm.
The data has not yet been indexed by name, so the only way to find someone is to know the “Enumeration District (ED)” they lived in. You can find the ED by state and county and sometimes town. The ED I am interested in is where both sets of my grandparents lived; ED 6-28 (Clinton, Maine, West of Maine Central Railroad).
Fortunately, not many people lived in Clinton, so it wasn’t too hard to find my grandparents. Here’s one grandfather, Everett White and family, including my mother Darlene who was 2 years old. According to this, Grampy was 31 years old and owned his own home, which was estimated to be worth $1500. He had finished one year of high school. Nana was 25 and had finished 4 years of high school.
And here’s the right side of the page. It shows that Grampy (line 66) was working as a packer at (Keyes) Fiber Company. At $1400 / year it looks like he was definitely one of the higher paid folks in that part of town, although a lot of people were farmers, and didn’t claim a salary.
I’ve also found the record for my fathers parents, who lived a bit further down Hinckley Road. I’ll update the post with that record later as it’s getting late now. And over on the River Road lived the Boydens who had a 13 year old boy named Storer. My father’s sister Grace married Storer, and many years later Uncle Storer was a successful dairy farmer who gave me my first job.
