Lefty Looks Back

So, what have I been up to? Well, the job search has been fruitless. I decided to look for some volunteer work just so that I wouldn't go mad. One day in late March I saw a tweet about the impending release of the 1940 Census records and the need for volunteers to index the records for genealogical web sites. It seemed right up my alley, so I signed up. I wanted something to do that had very little restriction in terms of the amount of time I'd have to commit. In other words, I could do as much or as little as I liked on a given day and the only supervision was in the form of an arbitrator, who would compare my work to the original record and rate my accuracy.
The census records were released the first week of April and so many people wanted to view them, the site I signed up to work for kept crashing. After a few days, the problem was fixed and I was able to begin. Since then, I've indexed close to eight thousand individual names. My current accuracy is 98%. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to become an arbitrator. I really like indexing, but at some point I may switch over to arbitration. The records for Brooklyn and Manhattan were released in early May, so I've done the bulk of my work on them. It's fascinating to read information about what life was like back then.
Just this past week, I got an email that said the project is 50% complete and that the New York records were now available to be searched in the Ancestry.com database. Although I knew it was a long shot that I'd get to index my own families' records, I was hoping they'd be in the database of records that had been released. Lo and behold, after running a search, I found both my mom's and dad's parents.

Manhattan, April 1940

My father's father was listed as living with a host family in Brooklyn, after emigrating from Danzig, Germany. His job was listed as iron worker and his salary was $1600 per year. I called my dad to ask for more information about the iron worker part, as I'd always thought my grandfather was a baker. My dad said that his father was an ornamental iron worker who was part of the team that did the art deco work in the Chrysler building. Unfortunately, any other records of the buildings he worked on have been lost to time.
I also found my father's mother in the records, who was listed as a secretary working for a private company in Manhattan, and she also lived in Brooklyn. My dad wasn't sure where she worked at that time, but the crazy thing is that my grandmother later ended up working in the Chrysler building as well. I remember going to work with her one day during summer break. She let me play around with her fancy electric typewriter and I got to play office and take home all my "work" when the day was through. I remember going to lunch at the Automat that day and then we took the subway back to Brooklyn. When we got off the train, I realized I'd left my manila envelope filled with all my "work" on the seat and it was like losing an important souvenir of my childhood, a thing that made me feel proud and grown up.
Finding my father's parents made me feel happy because I've had very little or no connection to them in my life. My grandfather died five years before I was born and my grandmother died when I was nine. She spoiled me a lot as a child and gave me the unconditional love that every child needs. I'm glad that I had her in my life as long as I did, but I think she left a void that remains in my life to this day.
After another search, I found my mother's parents in the census records. They were already married, living in Brooklyn, with two small children. My grandfather drove a truck for a sugar company, making $1900 per year. I think the only reason he made more money than my iron worker grandfather is that he was probably in a union. Perhaps it's also because my iron worker grandfather was still an alien. He didn't become an American citizen until after WWII, just before my father was born. I also realized that my mother's mother started having babies when she was 18. She would go on to have a total of seven children. My father is an only child, as am I.
While I work on the census records, my mind is constantly imagining what was happening in the lives of the people whose names and personal information I'm typing. I wonder about the encounter with the enumerator, who walked door to door, knocking and then asking for people to give all of their personal information. The 1940 census was taken in April, so I always wonder if it was raining, and I wonder if the enumerator was asked to come inside, to have a seat, offered something to drink. I always wonder about the older widows who lived alone, and wonder whether they're happy for the company. Each name I type was a life, now captured in time on millions of pages, line by line. I hope my work helps others who want to connect to their ancestors, if only just to see their names in print, to know that on one rainy day in April 1940, they were real.