Direct Me NYC: NYPL Helps You Find New Yorkers in the 1940 Census by Carmen Nigro, Assistant Director, Map, Dorot Jewish, and Local History & Genealogy Divisions, Stephen A. Schwarzman BuildingApril 2, 2012

The genealogy world is buzzing with today’s release of the 1940 Federal Census, but some have been disappointed to discover that the newly released data cannot yet be searched by name. Never fear, NYPL to the rescue!

NYPL Labs has created a fantastic new online tool to help you locate New Yorkers in 1940. In conjunction with the Milstein Division, One-Step, and the National Archives, our tool will help you find any New Yorker listed in the telephone directory. Direct Me: NYC will help you get from the name in the directory to the census information by using One-Step to convert the address to enumeration district and opening up the corresponding census pages.

Read more about Direct Me: NYC in the Wall Street Journal: "City Library Eases Way For Searching 1940 Census"

Find out more about searching the census for genealogy reasons: Everyone Counts: Using the Census for Genealogy Reasons

Learn more about Direct Me: NYC by visiting our FAQs

View all posts by Carmen Nigro

Comments

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Useful for Sleuthing

Submitted by Sherri (not verified) on April 5, 2012 - 3:48pm

Thank for sharing this! I think I may have found the location of my great-uncle's former bakery in the Bronx using this tool.