Wednesday, February 29, 2012

1940 Census

The 1940 census comes out in 32 days. You may have noticed a new badge on my blog. When the census comes out, it will still need to be indexed so that it can be searched. The more people working on the project, the faster the results will be out and we will be able to continue our research finding our ancestors. For some of us, this will be the first time we are able to find certain relatives in the census. In honor of the census and to get the word out, I'll be dedicating my Wednesday posts until the  census is released to one of my relatives. My grandfather Robert Thomas served in World War II and was kind enough to leave us a journal documenting some of his time in the service. Each Wednesday I'll be posting an excerpt from his journal.

February 7, 1942 We have taken on a lot of cargo, 5 inch guns have been put on and machine guns. The people on the ships are sailors, coast guard, civilians who are going to work in the islands, nurses woman marines all together I guess about 7,000 or more on board. No one knows when we are leaving, I may go to sleep and wake up at sea who knows. I phoned Mother two times from goat island the last time to tell her where I was going and I know that she took it hard, poor Mother that is my only worry now. I wish I could get liberty to see her before we pull out. I saw everyone and tried but no soap, so will just give up the idea. At least I had a nice talk with her the first telephone call, she and I was also so happy that phone call was worth a $100 dollars, I also talked to Nadine and I was so happy to hear from her, dear little Nadine, several times while talking I had tears in my eyes I know. We eat in the dining room here and have waiters so everything is OK. on board ship I like it all right if it was not for the way Mother feels I would be all right. We are going by convoy as there are tankers, cargo ships and tin cans, troop ships with soldiers army on a ship laying in the bay so I guess we'll all pull out soon. HERE'S HOPING HOCK.

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