[Genealib] 1-Step Improvement - 1920 Federal Census

[Joy Rich]

Here it is without HTML.

Joy

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I'm distributing this information at the request of Joel Weintraub.

Joy

Joy Rich, MLS
Chapter Representative, New York Metro Chapter
Association of Professional Genealogists
http://www.apgen.org
http://www.apgen.org/chapters/newyork/index.html

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"I want to announce an expansion of the geographical search capabilities for 
the US Census at the Morse 1-Step website.

We presently have street indexes to Enumeration District (ED) numbers for 
large cities for the 1910, 1930, and even 1940 (opening 2012) censuses, and 
some location to ED information for the 1910 census for smaller communities. 
We also have incorporated the National Archives (NARA) 1930 database where 
all EDs are described (and searchable). Another tool we have are conversion 
tables from 1940 EDs to 1930 EDs (and more important, vice versa), 3,000 
urban areas defined by their EDs in 1940 (and therefore 1930), and tables 
for the larger cities' 1930 ED numbers converted to 1920 ones.

Until this week, the only online method for finding easily 1920 EDs from 
location data was our conversion routines, but only for large urban areas. 
However, our ability to convert 1930 to 1920 ED numbers has now been 
augmented to include rural areas as well.  Originally, I and some volunteers 
transcribed about 40,000 1930/1920 ED pairs for the large and medium cities 
(ending up with about 975 areas), and just this month, I completed 
transcribing the remaining 80,000 or so correlates for the smaller urban 
areas and rural communities (adding over 1,400 small urban area names to the 
database for 1930/1920).  Steve Morse now has integrated the new database 
into the existing 1-Step utilities and expanded their capabilities.  He has 
also combined some overlapping utilities on the 1-Step site in the census 
area.   If you find errors in the data or problems with the search engines, 
let Steve or me know.

So now one should be able to, online and for free,  find most ED numbers on 
the 1920 census by geographical means, whether the target address is in a 
city, town, or rural area. (We already have that capability for 1930 and 
1940.)

To summarize: if you can't find a name on a name index for the 1920 census, 
but know the location that your target was living at in 1920, then it is now 
possible to do one (or all) of the following on the 1-Step Website:  1. Find 
your 1920 large city address on our 1930 ED finder, and convert the 
resultant 1930 ED # to a 1920 one;  2. Find your small community name on our 
1930/1920 list of urban areas, and see the 1930 and 1920 ED numbers for that 
area; 3. Take a 1930 ED number and find out what it correlates with in 1920 
(and vice versa); 4. Use the NARA database through the 1-Step site to find 
your target location in 1930, and use the links there to the 1920 (and 1940) 
conversion utilities.

The 1930 to 1920 table source information (NARA T1224) was not as good as 
the 1940 to 1930 material, so the coverage we have isn't 100%.  Some areas 
show ranges of EDs while others lacked information entirely or the NARA film 
was illegible, but we think that most searches will be successful using the 
new tables and expanded utility features. See the revised "Overview" essay 
on the "US Census and Soundex (1790-1940)"  folder for more information at: 
http://www.stevemorse.org/

Enjoy,

Joel Weintraub
Dana Point, CA"