The Ancestry.com Support Community is just that: a place where community members can get answers from other members of the Ancestry.com community about how to use the site for research. And it’s all very public so anyone can read the questions and benefit from the answers.

Currently, questions range from how to order DNA to researching in the New York State Census and so many other topics in between. Search through the questions via the Get Help link at the top of any Ancestry.com page. Then select Ask the Community to go to the Community homepage .

You’ll need a login to ask a question or post a comment (note this login is separate from your Ancestry.com member login). If it’s your first time responding, select Sign Up and you’ll be prompted to create a Community-specific login. Once you’re logged in, you can ask questions or post responses to assist other Ancestry.com users.

So, about those search tips … if you’re as interested as I was in them, you’ll want to read the answers in the Getting Started section of the Support Community. And maybe, like I did, post your own (remember, if you’re posting, login to the Support Community first).

New York was the country’s biggest state in 1940 and its census pages are filled with fascinating folks. We’ve already found a few – see links to a handful of recognizable names on our Sticky Notes blog. Plus New York joins Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maine and Nevada as the states from the 1940 census that are now fully indexed and fully searchable on Ancestry.com.

While we realize New York itself housed more than 10 percent of the country’s residents in 1940, there are still likely a few of your relatives who were living somewhere else (mine, too). With that in mind, know that our next indexed states are just around the corner. So stay tuned.

Search the 1940 census now.

And as of last night, you can search for the state’s residents by name during that moment in time in the just-launched 1940 U.S. census index for Maine on Ancestry.com.

Adding Maine to our list of fully indexed, fully searchable locations brings us up to four: Maine, Nevada, District of Columbia and Delaware. Search for resident by name to find your own family’s Maine relations. Or look for famous Mainers including future actress Linda Lavin (a toddler at the time) and Leon Bean (better known as L.L.), who’s listed as the president of a sporting goods company. Or browse through the town of Strong, Maine to see how many residents made toothpicks for a living. It was big business back in Maine in the day – and for many years to come.

If Maine isn’t at the top of your wish list of states to search, take note: more states are on deck with indexes coming very soon. And the entire 1940 U.S. Federal Census will be fully indexed and fully searchable on Ancestry.com long before the end of the year. Plus you can browse through every 1940 census image, regardless of state or territory, already on Ancestry.com. Start browsing and searching now.

Then join us again on Thursday, May 17 at 8pm ET as Juliana Szucs Smith presents Get More Clues from a Census Record.

Both classes are absolutely free but registration before each event is required (bonus: when you register, you’ll get an email reminder about the presentation as well as an email informing you when the class is available for viewing online after the presentation airs – even if you weren’t able to attend the live broadcast). You can register for a class by selecting its name above.

And be sure to stick around until the end. Both Juliana and Crista will pick a handful of questions from the audience and give you their spot-on answers.

First, you’ll find the likely suspects – like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and J. Edgar Hoover. Plus interesting tots including a one-year-old Marvin Gaye.

With the addition of the District of Columbia, we now have three indexed 1940 census locations. And there are more on their way.  Remember, we’re currently indexing and processing all states in the 1940 census (and territories, too). Our goal is still to deliver to you a fully indexed, complete 1940 U.S. Census as soon as possible so you can search for your ancestor in it by name. We’ll continue releasing indexes on a state-by-state basis, with each going live as soon as the entire state is fully keyed and indexed and has passed through our QA process.

By the way, the view from behind the scenes is amazing – the progress is moving quickly and smoothly. We realize that it may seem like it’s molasses in winter when you’re waiting for a searchable index associated with the state where you’re ancestor lived. But know that before we hit year’s end, you’ll be able to search by name in every census currently available, from 1790 to 1940, on Ancestry.com.

Start your search now!

Seems like we should have an easy answer for it, and we do – because it takes time. But that answer resonates about as well as “because I said so” did when you were a kid. So we feel there’s a better (but longer) answer that explains more.

It goes like this: making family history records searchable online is one of those anomalous endeavors today that still requires people, not machines, to get things done. You need eyes on a page, fingers on a keyboard, brains to review and check everything and someone to push the final button and say “okay.”

During the first five days that we had the 1940 census, we placed all 3.8 million census pages, a.k.a. census images, online, allowing people to browse through enumeration districts to find family members. It’s the old-fashioned way of researching, much like using microfilm and it’s not ideal. But we wanted to ensure you had access to the records as quickly as possible, all while we were working on the ideal situation – a fully indexed, name-searchable 1940 U.S. Census.

So while those images were being loaded online, they were also being delivered to Ancestry.com indexers, who immediately dove in and started transcribing the words and names and marks and codes on each page.

For numbers people, consider this: each one of those 3.8 million images or pages can hold up to 40 people. Each of those 40 people can have more than 30 boxes of information associated with him/her. Two lucky people on each page will also have extra information included about them totaling another 15 boxes of information. While not every box will be transcribed, or as we call it “keyed,” most will.

Information on the 1940 census is handwritten, somewhat freeform, in the individual census taker’s own unique script. Unfortunately, that cursive can’t effectively be processed by machine. So each page is handed to a person who manually types in details. Some fields are more complex than others: names vary, birthplaces aren’t limited to just 50 states and sometimes what’s written is in desperate need of deciphering.

After all of the information on a census page is keyed, it goes through a series of quality assurance (QA), reviews and spot checks. Errors on the page kick that page back through the keying process; in other words someone takes another pass through that page and the process starts all over again.

Combined, these processes create an index of the information on that page, a searchable database of specific information plucked out of the historical record. Once this index passes its QA tests, additional steps are taken to ensure that the database works correctly within the Ancestry.com environment – this includes its connectivity to and coordination with our search engine and other historical records and integration into our family tree Hints system, so we can notify you when we find your family member in this new collection, too. Before pushing the index and images live on the Ancestry.com site, names must be linked to appropriate census images and the whole system is tested once again. Once these final tests are passed, the index goes live, allowing you to search by name.

Now, all of this detail begs another question: why isn’t that thoroughly indexed, checked, scanned, reviewed and OK-d page immediately placed online solo?

This one is a little tougher to answer.

Our decision was and still is to launch each state index from the 1940 census at the time the state’s index is 100 percent complete. It was a tough decision to make but one we feel confident about (trust us, the decision was arrived at after plenty of spirited debate). In the end, we opted to launch state-by-state indexes rather than indexes for smaller areas because of two key factors:

1. Partial indexes may be difficult to use and frustrating. Say, for example, the District of Columbia has a searchable index consisting of only 8 percent of DC’s population. You search it and don’t find your relative. Does that mean he or she wasn’t living there? If that 8 percent covers portions of various enumeration districts in no particular order, even covering just small parts of a street, the challenge is even greater for a researcher. Until the whole state is finished, there’s virtually no way of knowing if your relative’s home has been indexed yet.
2. Full state indexes actually speed up the process of getting the entire 1940 U.S. Census online. Taking a grouped approach allows us to deliver a name-searchable 1940 index to you more quickly than if we launched single indexed pages at a time. Each state you’ll search through in the interim will be complete – not partial. When it’s all said and done, you’ll be able to search by name in every U.S. census sooner rather than later at Ancestry.com, from 1940 all the way back to 1790. Follow your family back decade by decade. Guaranteed amazing.

The waiting, however, is the hardest part. At this point in the process, we’re transcribing, indexing, checking and processing every state that hasn’t been fully indexed yet as well as all U.S. territories included in the 1940 census. We’re also reviewing and fixing images that we received from the National Archives and finalizing our new interactive image viewer technology so that over the next few months, you’ll be able to see all of those answers from 1940 clearly, the way the census should be read.

So here’s our promise to you. We anticipate our next indexed location to be ready very soon. After that, we’ll deliver another state; then we’ll start launching state indexes a few at a time. Unfortunately, we can’t say which state will be ready first or next or even pin a date on when a specific state – including the one you really want to search – will be fully indexed.

We can tell you that each one will be worth the wait.

Visit the 1940 Census, to find the state you’re interested in. Look above the Browse box for a link to our FREE research guide to help you find your family in 1940, if your state isn’t yet indexed. And remember, you can search by name in Nevada and Delaware.

By the way, we’re not slowing down anytime soon.  We’re continuing to index states. And we’ll let you know the minute the ones you’re interested in are ready.

Learn more about 1940 at www.ancestry.com/1940.

While we work on a permanent place to showcase these fantastic stories (featuring one per month never seems enough to me), we’ll continue featuring them in our newsletter. You’ll find this month’s in our Tips and Tools section – appropriate since one of the best ways to learn about using Ancestry.com is to find out from other people who do, too.

About last month’s naming survey: we’re combing through the great write-in candidates as well as the top vote-getter (it’s still a surprise) before we make the final announcement. Expect to see our newsletter’s new name front and center in the September 2011 issue. And be sure to answer this month’s short survey about what you want to see more of in this newsletter. You’ll find a link to the survey in the Your Turn section.

That brings me to my next point: please keep sharing your opinions. I personally received thousands of emails after the July issue of our newsletter – so many that I’m still trying to wade through them all. That, however, is a good problem because each note contained a valuable suggestion for a way we could make the newsletter and Ancestry.com serve you even better. So continue sending me your feedback, comments, stories and suggestions. You can reach me directly at jeanie@ancestry.com.

How could we convey all of this in a single, short email? By creating an all-new Ancestry.com monthly newsletter. And starting with this July 2011 issue, that’s exactly what we’ve done. It’s our first step in creating a newsletter that’s focused on the way YOU use Ancestry.com. Look in future months for even more news and content features that pertain directly to your family history, as well as detailed advice, quick links to past newsletter issues and a greater emphasis on how you approach research.

When you receive your new Ancestry.com newsletter, the first thing you’ll notice is that it’s a lot shorter. That’s our nod to its format – email. But don’t let that brevity trick you – we’ve designed it this way so you can quickly find what you’re looking for and click on a link to get details fast. The newsletter itself, however, is more packed than ever.

We’ve branded the feature article our Inside Scoop. This is where you’ll find the stories behind the records – everything from what we found in a collection to how the collection came to be, and then some. Because for years, all of us at Ancestry.com have known that getting a peek at a new record collection is like opening a big, cool present – and now we want to share with you the fun of whatever we discover inside.

But you don’t come to Ancestry.com just for the stories, which is why you’ll now find our highlighted new record collections featured front and center and with a quick link that will take you directly to an all-inclusive list of everything else that’s new on Ancestry.com.

Click on any featured content to immediately start searching that collection, or stick with your regular search routine, if you have one (I admit, I don’t – I search more on whims). Remember, even if you don’t search our new collections directly, a search of all of Ancestry.com always includes our newest records, too.

Because it never hurts to brush up on technique and be the first to know when there’s a new tool or trick that can help you, we’re dedicating an entire section of our newsletter to education – Tips & Tools.

It’s here that we’ll show you our latest site enhancements and give you a refresher course in family history how-to, too.

Plus, Ancestry Anne still loves to answer your questions. Her advice, insider search tips and answers are right where you’ve been finding them for the past year. By the way, she loves mail – reach her with your questions and comments (go ahead, send her the toughest ones) directly at ask@ancestry.com.

And we want to know what you think. Look for the Your Turn section for a link to take a short survey or even vote on something in each issue.

This month, we’re hoping you can help us name this brand new newsletter. Click on the Your Turn link in the bottom right corner of the email to help us decide what that name should be.

And, remember, this is YOUR newsletter. If you ever have any questions, comments, concerns or ideas about what you’d like to see in it, I’d love to know. You can contact me directly at jeanie@ancestry.com.