Other 1940 Census Surprises

When you do not know the street address where your relatives were living in 1940 you will have to wait until the 1940 census is fully indexed to locate them.  However sometimes you get lucky.  My cousin Joanne decided to check a small community close to where our family was living in 1930.  On page 19 of 33 ED # 101-49 Harris County Texas of the 1940 census she found my uncle Leroy A Hugonin 34, single, a chicken farmer, and my father Arthur Elsworth Hugonin (Leroy A Hugonin's youngest brother) 18, a farmers helper, living in the same household.   And on page 22 of 33 ED # 101-49 was my grandfather Lewis Alexander Hugonin (62) head of household,  grandmother Bessie Bell Myers Hugonin (60), and Bessie Mae Hugonin (16) their daughter.    

Adventures with the 1940 Census

  My first encounter with the 1940 Census on April 2, 2012 was not a very pleasant one.  The site that I checked first was "1940 census.archives.gov".  The response to my inquiries was very very very slow and when the display finally appeared it was very large writing and did not display the full page.   Also there were lots of error messages such as "cannot display page" and "page not available".  So after a frustrating hour of attempted inquires I quit for the day.  
  I decided to check out Ancestry.com on day two.  Ancestry only had three states completed for viewing.  Even though the states we not the ones I needed, I made a general inquiry in one of them.  To my surprise Ancestry displayed a full page.  The page was very easy to read and the options to enlarge or shrink and to print worked.   Ancestry also informed its users to check back occasionally to see when more states were completed.   On a scale of 1 - 10, day two was a 5.
  On day three the Images for Texas were available for viewing.  My home town is Tomball, Harris, Texas.  Tomball is located about 20 miles northwest of Houston Texas.  In 1940 there was about 1,000 residents within the city limits of Tomball.  There was only one E.D. number for the city.   After a few minutes of looking thru the records I found that my mother (Margie Mitchell) was living in the household of her sister (Willie Maurine Mitchell Thomas).   Also living in the same household was Ralph Loyal Thomas, Maurine's husband and Zeda Parlee Chamness Mitchell, my grandmother.   Day three was a 10!