Why have perfectly good 1940 census records been messed up lately?
1940 census records used to be about the cleanest records to review, having all relevant data available and in sequence. However, for some time now, the records appear "re-indexed" and are a mess. The family members are listed randomly rather than as listed on the record itself, normally by age. Also, for township records, the search result page no longer lists a 'Household' number even when it appears clearly on the census record itself. This has been my standard reference point for families for years BECAUSE IT WAS A PRIMARY PIECE OF DATA SUPPLIED WITH THE RECORDS since I first began my searches.
Please don't cop out and say "the record is provided for viewing, so use it" as this literally defeats the efforts of indexing/formatting things in the first place. These items are negative changes compared to the last 10+ years so there is no acceptable explanation from my point-of-view beyond "it'll be fixed."
Answers
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I have also noticed a problem with some 1940 US Census records. It seems to be similar to the problem we have seen in recent months with the 1900 US Census. My observation - so far - has been that the problem seems to occur when the ED description is quite long. It seems to cause a corruption in the formatting.
There have been a few reports, and, when I see them, I've been bumping them to a Mod who has taken the lead with the 1900 issues, @N Tychonievich.
If you can provide the URL to a specific example that may make it easier to track down the problem when it is referred to the engineers.
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