1940 Census Website Swarmed With Visitors

Looking up information about your parents, grandparents or other older family members got a lot easier this week when the U.S. National Archives put results from the 1940 Census online.

However, the ease of search and excitement about new data has led to a surprising result: according to the Associated Press, the 1940 Census website has been overwhelmed with visitors, receiving 22 million visitors in its first four hours online.

Searching for La Cañada, or for a lot of Los Angeles County homes, is a little tricky as most cities in the county were not incorporated in 1940. La Cañada incorporated in 1976. The best way to pick up data from a non-incorporated city appears to be picking a street in a neighboring incorporated city (Pasadena) and picking a street that runs into both cities. Then, for a cross street, select 'city limits.'

The map on right comes from an archive listing of Pasadena in the 1940 census, but also depicts the San Gabriel Mountains.

On Tuesday afternoon, visting and searching on the site was a little slow, likely due to the large number of visitors. Spokespeople for the National Archives told the Associated Press the organization has been adding additional server space to try to cope with the large number of website visitors.

If you do take a look and find anything interesting about the local area, please let us know!