Love this community service project with me.

I've come across a community service project and I'm kind of excited for it...which means that I want you to be kind of excited for it too! Stay with me here.


Have you heard of a census before? I knew it had something to do with records and genealogy type work, but that was all. And honestly, I didn't really think much of it.


THEN I started watching a show last year called Who Do You Think You Are. 

Have you seen this show? I'm totally hooked. They take celebrities and go back in their history to find all these great stories about their distant relatives. Here's a link to some recent episodes on Hulu. I suggest watching it. 


Anyway...so I got hooked on this show and started wondering more about my genealogy. I first went to the almighty Google and Google Maps to find exactly where my distant relatives lived in Denmark and England.  Then I went to my Mom's genealogy records and on one side we can trace all the way back to the year 68! That's insane.  And if you must know...my 6th great grandfather almost blew up the Mayflower. True story. 

Who would have thought I was related to naughty little boys with potty mouths? Oh wait...

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Dear NBC, 

Please do an episode of your show using bloggers instead of celebrities. And then pick me of course :)

xoxo,

Leelou

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So on to my great community service discovery...A census is a HUGE document that lists names and info of people that live in a particular country in a particular year. A census is not released very often and when they are, it takes years to archive it all.


That's where the community service project comes in. Family Search and several other big genealogy companies are teaming up to archive the 1940's census that will be released on April 2nd and they need YOU! The sooner everything is archived, the sooner everyone can benefit from it. And this year, the census will be made available as free digital images, which apparently hasn't happened before.


Who do you know that was alive in 1940? I'm totally unfamiliar with the 40's myself, so I'm going to be doing some research here.  Lot's of stuff went down in the 40's and I'm gonna find the coolest of it all and share it with you. Then you're gonna jump on the band wagon and help out all those people you know that lived through it all too, right?


This project is going to get done one way or another, so why don't we all pitch in a little and help? I would love for as many people to sign up as possible to help archive it! You can help out by volunteering to index images or you can sign up to become a 1940 US Census Blog Ambassador. 


Another perk of this community project is that they are giving away some amazing prizes to volunteers. I'm talking laptops and iPads people! So now you get to help others, win prizes and have that warm fuzzy feeling all day long. Win win baby!


Go here to sign up so when the census is released, we can be all over that! And then look up some of your ancestors and tell me grand stories about them. Ready, go!

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