Today we got a clearer picture on how the 1940 U.S. Census index publication horse race might play out. It might not be what you expected.
Ancestry.com announced earlier this week that they had completed an index for the state of New York. New York was the largest state in 1940, containing about a tenth of the country’s population. That was enough to boost Ancestry’s completion percentage to 11.19%, propelling their horse ahead of where the FamilySearch horse was at the time of my last update.
However, in that nine day period FamilySearch released Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Montana, pushing their publication horse to 13%.
While the Ancestry horse was not able to pass the FamilySearch horse, it is running much closer than people have perceived. We might just have ourselves a horse race.
Ancestry’s completion of New York is also a basis for comparison against the MyHeritage horse. Apparently both organizations were indexing New York at the same time. Obviously, Ancestry’s horse beat the MyHeritage horse to that important milestone. MyHeritage remains at 0.82%.
Along with their announcement of the publication of an index for New York state, Ancestry announced the release of other New York state databases and a special deal for New York state residents. For more information, visit www.ancestry.com/newyork .
via The Ancestry Insider: Census Indexing Horse Race Update for 6 June 2012.