New Chapter Unfolds in O.C. for Genealogists

Most days, researchers camped out in Laguna Niguel’s National Archives reference room chitchat about the past as they untangle the threads of family history.

In recent weeks, though, the talk has been about the future--today, to be precise, when archivists believe the unsealing of 72-year-old census will set off a mad scramble of genealogists hungry for what one called “the first fresh meat” in a decade.

Today’s release lifts a veil drawn by an agreement between the Bureau of the Census and the National Archives that keeps census data private for a lifetime--72 years. The census is taken every 10 years and the last records--from 1920--were released a decade ago. Personal details from the 2000 census won’t be available to researchers until 2072.

The Laguna Niguel archives, one of 14 repositories in the United States and the only one in Southern California, will open as usual at 8:45 this morning. But at least five other regional centers planned to open at 12:01 a.m. in a “midnight madness” rush to satiate genealogists.

“I plan to be asleep,” said Constance Potter, an archivist at the National Archives headquarters outside Washington, D.C., who is involved in overseeing the national release.

Interest in genealogy has grown explosively in recent years, giving rise to Web sites like Ancestry.com and leading to parades of researchers through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ family history centers. The libraries, as part of the Mormon faith, maintain massive files on deceased ancestors. But it will be months before the 1930 records are available anywhere but the National Archives, experts said.

Although old census records are treasure-troves for genealogists and historians, the 1930 census is particularly intriguing. Conducted six months after the 1929 stock-market crash, the census offers snapshots of family life on the eve of massive national upheaval--the Great Depression and the mass migration of displaced farmers from the Great Plains states to California.

The 1930 census reflected the spread of mass media by asking if families owned radios.

“It was a very new medium,” said Dave Pemberton, a U.S. Census historian, who described radios as the cutting-edge technology of the 1920s--much like personal computers in the ‘90s. An industry survey reported 60,000 radios sold in 1922, he said. Eight years later, the 1930 census counted 12 million radios among a population of 123 million people in the 48 states.

“And in the early days of radio, the number of sets didn’t necessarily indicate the number of people being reached,” Pemberton said. “People would come from several houses around and drop in on you if you happened to be the owner of a radio.”

Although many genealogists look to census records for details about ancestors’ lives, older researchers will be able to look back at their youth. People born before April 1, 1930, can find themselves enumerated as members of their family households.

Roxie Ogilvie, 71, of Riverside won’t be listed in the 1930 census, but she has plenty to look up among an extended network of relatives from her native Michigan, and other Midwest states. “There are probably only 10 families I’m really interested in,” Ogilvie said last week amid the whir of microfilm reading machines in the archives’ reference room. “I’d like to see some details of people I know who are still alive.”

Researchers Are Excited About Access to Data

Anticipation of the 1930 release has made National Archives officials popular speakers at genealogy clubs and libraries.

Paul Wormser, director of archival operations in Laguna Niguel, said that in the last year, archivists conducted 35 workshops for libraries and genealogy groups across Southern California. “They’re quite excited--it’s a major event in that the census is one of the bedrocks upon which most genealogists do their research,” Wormser said. “We’re expecting a lot of people [today].”

Reservations are not needed, but picture IDs are required to enter the building, Wormser said.

“It’ll be wild,” said Pat Weeks of Dana Point, a retired speech pathologist and part-time archives volunteer who plans to show up today, normally a day off, “just to see the fun.”

About 13,000 researchers visited the Laguna Niguel archives last year, making it the third-busiest of the 13 regional centers after Boston, with 14,900 researchers, and Seattle, with 16,200. The National Archives in Washington, D.C., drew 51,500. The only other archive in California, at San Bruno in the Bay Area, drew 9,400 researchers.

The pace of visitors to the Laguna Niguel facility, midway between Los Angeles and San Diego, has picked up in recent weeks as genealogists conducted pre-search to the research.

To find a family in the 1930 census, one must know where the family lived and then match that address to the census enumeration districts to figure out which of the 2,200 rolls of microfilm holds that record. The archives bought microfilmed 1930s-era editions of directories of more than 600 cities and regions and deposited copies in each of the reference rooms. Genealogists like Ogilvie have already figured out which rolls they’ll look at once the files are opened.

Yet some researchers have written off trying to use the files for a few weeks, assuming the lines will be too long even for people with the patience to chase history through old files.

The reference room in Laguna Niguel contains 50 microfilm readers and two printers, and if a line forms, Wormser said, researchers will be limited to two hours.

“I’ll wait awhile,” said Jerry Wessler, 68, who has traced threads of his family history back to the Cherokee nation, Germany and Scandinavia.

“I’m not in there [the 1930 census], but I want to look up my parents and my brother. I’ll just continue the lines I’m already searching, just updating them.”

Skeleton in the Closet Is Bonus for Some

The pursuit of family history is as Middle America as the decision to wear sensible shoes, but some genealogists have a dark sense of humor about the quests.

Part of the fun, they say, is discovering skeletons in the family closet and learning the stories that families only whisper about.

One researcher this week volunteered that she had trouble tracking down her mother’s roots. Then she found out why: Her mother was raised in a Midwest orphanage after her father was decapitated in a railroad yard accident.

A few minutes later, another genealogist scurried across the reference room to divulge that she had just found a page from an 1870 Lexington, Ky., census that named several women at one address with the occupation “prostitute.”

“It’s fascinating--if you like history, you’ll love this,” said Weeks, who has been pursuing the past for more than 30 years. “It’s the fun of the chase.”