The April 2nd launch of the 1940 United States Federal Census generated a great deal of excitement among genealogists, history buffs, and the merely curious alike. And while I didn’t queue up outside of the Seattle regional branch of the National Archives (ahem) like some, I did sit down with my laptop at 7:30 a.m. PDT, roughly 90 minutes after the census was officially made available to the public at large. This was my first look at ED 40-31 for Shoshone Co., Idaho.

Later that same evening, after the East Coasters should have been tucked into bed, my view still hadn’t changed. Fortunately, the technical issues were resolved when I checked back 24 hours later. So far, I’ve found the site to be relatively easy to navigate, although buttons to minimize and maximize the census image would be a nice addition.

You can use the CTRL key plus the plus sign (Ctrl++) on your keyboard to maximize, or the CTRL key plus the minus sign (Ctrl +-) to minimize, but this will increase/decrease the size of your entire browser window. I find that to be a small inconvenience for FREE access to all 1940 census images.

Visit the official website of the 1940 census at  http://1940census.archives.gov.

The Official 1940 Census website page