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1940 Census

Perhaps you are aware that a few weeks ago the government released details of the 1940 census. Naturally genealogists hailed it as some kind of second coming.  I suppose it has some value, but it sis so recent that I imagine most of us already had the information these records contained anyway.

Joan Semande, my old boss at Dick Blick, sent Mercer County records to me and even told me the pages some Blythe's were listed.  It was very kind, but what is she combing old Mercer County archives for.  She, I believe, had some relatives who lived in Aledo, but why she would comb through Seaton archives is beyond me.  She was a Kistler, so perhaps there were some of them in Seaton.

Anyway, here are the listings of my grandparents and my Dad.



Not only are my Dad and his parents on this listing, but I saw several other names I remember.  Roy, Mabel and Letha Rader who lived next to us.  They are Uncle Ed's parents and twin sister.  I saw Max Constant, and Ed Criswell.  If you want to go down memory lane, you can get these documents easily on line.  

It says VG or Vern (I always thought there was an "e" on the end of his name) was 57, Orpha was 55 and Dad was 17.  It also says he was renting the house for $15.50 a month.  He would later buy the house.  That house is still there in Seaton.  Not much else: they moved to Seaton from Smithshire, and Verne owned and operated the grain elevator there.  Herb, after the war, came back to work with his father and later bought the elevator.  


I really have never been bitten by the genealogy bug.  Yeah, sure, I'm curious and would like to know more about my great-greats and so on.  But it seems to me, that ship has sailed.  You can get general info from the courthouse books, but how do you ever find out about the real people.  How they lived and laughed and what their interests were.  If I was prescient I would have asked my grandparents these questions when I had the chance.  Since they are all long gone the oral history of my ancestors has ceased to be.  And like they say, you aren't truly gone until the last person utters your name for the last time.  For my great grandparents that time was several decades ago. 

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