Index for 1940 MI census now available!

**Ray1936** · July-28-12, 02:17 PM

The 1940 census pages for Michigan are now indexed and searchable by name. I've found a few areas still missing, but it looks like better than 90% is available. Have fun! [[Share your success stories, also!!!)

http://www.ancestry.com/1940-census

**TiCub** · July-28-12, 03:54 PM

Originally Posted by Ray1936

The 1940 census pages for Michigan are now indexed and searchable by name. I've found a few areas still missing, but it looks like better than 90% is available. Have fun! [[Share your success stories, also!!!)

http://www.ancestry.com/1940-census

Thanks a lot for this valuable information. It looks like things are up and working, at least for me.

**Ray1936** · July-28-12, 07:50 PM

Besides digging in to my family, I'm also having fun checking out the shakers and movers in Detroit in 1940. For example, I found Albert Cobo and his family at 18955 Warrington. He states he is the City Treasurer at a salary of $5,000 a year, and his home is worth $15,000. Then a click on Google street view shows this to have been his home, as it appears today. Still nice digs, eh?

**Cincinnati_Kid** · July-28-12, 11:23 PM

Very nice looking house, well kept. I wonder what it's worth now?

**stromberg2** · July-29-12, 02:02 PM

Ray, do you know what neighborhood that is?

Stromberg2

**Ray1936** · July-29-12, 05:05 PM

North Rosedale Park, Strom.

**Cincinnati_Kid** · July-29-12, 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by Ray1936

North Rosedale Park, Strom.

I thought Warrington Street was in the Green Acres subdivision?

**nativegirl** · July-30-12, 07:16 AM

Ray,
Thanks for sharing this link. I was able to find my paternal great grandparents and learned they lived in what is now the Pepsi Detroit location.

CinCin Kid...Warrington is actually in Sherwood Forest....I know this personally.

**Gary** · July-30-12, 07:28 AM

This house is in the University District. Sherwood Forest is north of 7 Mile, Green Acres is north of Pembroke. Similar homes, but distinctly different neighborhoods.

**cman710** · July-30-12, 08:36 AM

Originally Posted by Cincinnati_Kid

Very nice looking house, well kept. I wonder what it's worth now?

The Zillow.com "zestimate" indicates an estimated value of $94,117, and a possible range of values of $59K-188K. I am guessing that $59K is closest to accurate, but others on this Forum would know better than I do. The home was built in 1928, so in 1940, it would have been relatively new.

**Danny** · July-30-12, 09:11 AM

Detroit population in 1940 was about 1.3 to 1.5 million at time due to regional and industrial growth. The suburbs in the meantime wasn't modernized or being developed for example if go north of 8 Mile Rd and Mound Rd in Warren Township, you would see unused farmland for miles and miles. But going north of Woodward to 15 Mile Rd. was being developed with gabled styled homes since the early 1920s. If you go further west of Lincoln Park. Southgate and Allen Park was part of Ecorse Township. Taylor was a full township with farmlands and small retail trading posts along Telegraph Rd. [[In which its wasn't a full developed 4 lane highway.) Romulus was a township, There was no City of Westland just Nankin Township, Livonia was Township with a small subdivision called "Rosedale Estates". Farmington Hills was a township. Few Quakers were living there at the time just farming.

Detroit was about 80% white, 13% black and, 1% Hispanic. Arab-American families were consectrated in Arabian Village communities in Dearborn's Arabian Village and some parts of Southwest Detroit Springwells Village and fewer parts of Grand River Ave. and Plymouth Rd. area. Wyoming Ave. to Oakman Blvd. commerical district. Downtown Detroit was filled with people even to late night hours. J.L Hudson Dept. Store was the main attraction followed by Kerns, Crowley's and F.W. Woolworth and S.S.Kresge's. There were theaters galore, lighting the skies with their marques. The City Hall rests in Woodward Ave. and behing Griswold St.

Black families [[Mostly first wave and other accepted the Black Muslim movement) were consectrated in Black Bottom, Paradise Valley. [[which its has expanded futher northward from Brush Park to Cass Corridor Midtown and up to the West Side and some parts of Highland Park. Most of them followed the ethnic Indo-European Jewish middle income families in which they served as butlers, housekeepers and maids.) Others at Conant Gardens, Beechwood St. and Tireman St. called ' Soultown' and W.8 Mile Rd. and Wyoming Ave. to Royal Oak TWP. with a 5 foot concrete wall being installed to keep them out from Detroit middle income white subdivisions of Sherwood Forest, Palmer Woods and Green Acres. Some were living near the Detroit-Hamtramck border along Mt. Elliot to Clay St. And at Del-Rey areas. Most of black families were kept out of middle income white communities due to restrictive covenants.

Ah those were the days. Now its just memories captured in pictures and in our minds.

**Ray1936** · July-30-12, 10:30 AM

Good synopsis, Danny. Thanks.

**Cincinnati_Kid** · July-30-12, 03:33 PM

Originally Posted by nativegirl

Ray,
Thanks for sharing this link. I was able to find my paternal great grandparents and learned they lived in what is now the Pepsi Detroit location.

CinCin Kid...Warrington is actually in Sherwood Forest....I know this personally.

Warrington starts at 8 Mile which is in Green Acres, I know it travels south into Sherwood Forrest and the University District, just didn't know where it was located on Warrington.

**Cincinnati_Kid** · July-30-12, 03:37 PM

Danny, are you some type of historian? Seems like you're pretty knowledgable about Detroit history, especially it's past. You must be a old timer

**Cincinnati_Kid** · July-30-12, 03:42 PM

Originally Posted by cman710

The Zillow.com "zestimate" indicates an estimated value of $94,117, and a possible range of values of $59K-188K. I am guessing that $59K is closest to accurate, but others on this Forum would know better than I do. The home was built in 1928, so in 1940, it would have been relatively new.

The University District does have some large, beautiful homes , and looks as if they're value is holding up. Probably not a lot of foreclosures and abandoned homes.

**stromberg2** · July-30-12, 05:04 PM

I believe, not sure, that Danny is in his 20s.

Stromberg2

**mikefmich** · August-03-12, 11:38 AM

Ancestry e-mailed an announcement this morning that the indexing is complete for the 1940 census now.

However, true to form, their transcriptions are lousy at best....there is a number of folks I cannot find that have pretty straightforward spellings. I can buy that a little from earlier eras, but not from later censuses.

**SaintMe** · August-03-12, 01:49 PM

This struck me as interesting and depressing . . . It says it cost $50 a year to attend U of M in the 1940s - the equivalent of $768 today. Currently, tuition for Fall and Winter is $12,000-$14000 - the equivalent of about $780 in 1940. So a student at U of M today is paying 1600% more for a college education than his grandparents did.