On April 2 at 6 a.m., three devoted SBCGS members arrived at the Sahyun Library to watch the launch of the 1940 Census. More members began arriving thereafter until there were 20 members, all waiting impatiently for the images to appear. Ancestry.com led the race to get the first 5 states' images online. Jim and Cari were the first to find themselves and other relatives with much hollering and celebration.
By late evening, five states were ready for indexing from FamilySearch. 1940census.archives.gov had unexpected technical difficulties and is working on the problem as of April 3.
Over 30 indexers in the SBCGS Project group are anticipating being able to begin indexing Santa Barbara County, if the batches are listed by county. Otherwise, we will be indexing whichever batch is downloaded for indexing.
An earlier message from FamilySearch told indexers, "The digital images for the 1940 US Census are larger and of higher quality than typical FamilySearch indexing images. Consequently, downloading batches may take longer than usual."
Dorothy
