The launch of the every-name index marks the completion of the U.S. Federal Census Collection at Ancestry.com. The massive project took over 6.6 million hours of labor and 21.9 billion keystrokes to manually enter the census names into the database. 15,000 rolls of microfilm–thirteen million original census images–were scanned and transcribed to complete the project.
To celebrate this milestone, Ancestry.com is offering free access to the 1930 U.S. Federal Census for three days. Just visit Ancestry.com and click through the census tour or click on one of the Census is Complete banners on the site.
*Act fast. Free access to the 1930 U.S. Census will expire soon.
6/23/06 NOTE: I’ve heard from a few people with questions as to how to access the free search. Here’s a bit more information:
The free period starts when you first access it. If you go to the Ancestry.com homepage, you should see a window open up announcing the free three-day access and allows you to Start Here. If you bypassed the page and went straight to Ancestry.com, you can still access the free 1930 census through the homepage.
In the upper right corner of the homepage, you should see a brown and orange ad with a green button that says “Dive In.” Click on that and it will take you through a presentation that you can click through by hitting “Continue.” On that next page there is a green link to “Search Now.” That will open a search box where you can search. When you find someone, click on that name and on the next screen you will see include the index entry and an option (to the right) to view the actual image.
Good luck with your searches!
Juliana
6/26/06 NOTE:Â Â I’ve heard from a few more readers regarding the free access to the 1930 census and need to clarify a few more issues.
To access the free three day trial, you need to allow Flash presentations. For those of you who weren’t able to access it through the homepage, try this link: http://census.ancestry.com/microsite/censuscomplete.aspx
To navigate the census image, click on a portion of the image, and then, holding the button down, drag the image opposite the direction you’d like to view. (i.e., If you’d like to view further down the page, click on the lower portion of the image, hold the button down and drag the cursor up to the top of your screen.)
Please let me know if there are any other problems with the free access and I’ll post other solutions on this message as well.
6/29/06 NOTE: This free access is only available until 05 July 2006.