1940 Census

[eclecticcottage]

I couldn't find the Old House on there, and the Cottage wasn't built yet. Couldn't find the original house that owned the property either, because they didn't record street numbers out here, lol. I did find a listing for the farm we tried to buy before the Cottage, it was interesting. The wife was listed as head of household, the farm was valued at $5k and they had a boarder and two foster daughters at the time. There was also a listing in the same area (I think) for another family with the same last name. It's sad, because I know the farm used to have a lot of acreage and it's down to 10 acres now-and in foreclosure, so it won't be in the same family any more after this.

[Sacto Diane]

I found that the original owner from 1912 was still living in the house at the time of the census at the age of 68 with his wife of 63. That matches previous research where the owners moved out sometime around 1950. 3 kids were listed in previous census but it looks like they all moved out by 1940.

Diane

[superbeetle]

My house was owned by a lawyer, who lived here with his wife and two young daughters. The house was valued at $5000. The smaller, rental side was rented for $25/mo to an elderly woman, her brother, and her daughter. Then I had to go find all of the other census records since the house was built. The house numbers were different in 1900, but I found it because I had seen the original builder's name on some telegraphs found in the walls. He was still here in 1910 (with a new wife).

By 1920, it had been converted into a duplex (the big renovation happened in 1918, according to the dates on the walls. Both the 1920 and 1930 occupants had live-in servants. In 1930, it rented for $50/mo. That seems like a lot!

One thing that is weird is that the 1940 occupants would recognize everything. Even the kitchen hasn't been touched, other than paint and paper.

[jwesevich]

I finally found the entry for our place--it was tucked some 35 pages away from the rest of the houses on this side of the street...

Anyway, explains why there was such nice reno work in the early '20s...the Swedish sea captain who bought it apparently became a contractor...

jeff

[s.kelly]

Thanks for the topic, I looked our place up, interesting. The owner was a self employed peddler, living with wife and adult daughter.

Where should I go to find earlier records? The details available on this one are great, would love to see other years.

[YinzerMama]

If you are on ancestry.com you can look up names rather than addresses. Granted people move but looking up names of other people on the street you might be able to find more info on the house at the time. I got burned subscribing to ancestry.com and will never pay to use it again but have learned many libraries have it for use if you go there - including ours. I keep meaning to go and see if I can find any more info that way.

There is a 1930 census site but all this figuring out sections and lack of house numbers etc.. ugh. I'm gonna go and try looking up people by name and see what I get.

[triguy128]

It's been entertaining looking through our abstract.

Don't forget, that big rise in home values you see in the 30's & 40's and again in the 70's also correlated to a big bump in inflation over the same period. SO adjusted for inflation, the value of the structure didn't rise as much. The big gains occuring when there were huge swing in demand. Home supply is not very elastic since it takes time to acquire land, capital and construct homes. SO in the post WWII boom, there was a shortage of homes and a sudden increase in incomes and standard of living. You saw the same in the previous decade before the housing market tanked. Low rates and increased access to financing created strong demand while salaries had also increased. OF course rates were artificially low (did not reflect true risk), a lot of spending was done on credit... so the market and economy went "pop"... and the bubble burst.