American search options for post 1940 census?

hjr

Hi there,
Just wondering about the best place to go researching online for people after the 1940 census. I have a few families I can trace up to 1940 but then nothing. I would be looking for Marraiges, children, deaths, etc...the usual!

Some of it is New York, but others are nationwide.

Thanks in advance

Coolnabacky1873

Huge variation between the different states.

Try all the individual state record sets on Familysearch. Some have indexes and records that go into the 21st century.

BMD records will be harder to access in many east coast states as there are privacy laws that vary from 50-100 years and you have to be the person named on the cert or a direct family member.

Wills and voter registration are public records open to all and up to the present. If you know the religious denomination then you should be able to get Church records. Obituaries too, although they are harder to come by if it is New York City specifically. Social Security Number application forms are good too but they are starting to get more restrictive with info they release on them.

If you post some specific queries for New York then I can hopefully point you in the right direction.

hjr

Thanks Coolnabacky1873,

One example in New York is as follows:

Edward Ryan (B 1881) married Kate/Catherine Cherry/Sherry (B 1891). They married on 19th September 1917, according to a relative of mine who had done some research...Would love to find a marraige record!

Have traced them to the 1940 census, and they have listed four children, Edward, Margaret, Catherine and Jane. It seems Edward Snr was married before and had two kids, Robert and Jack.

I want to trace what happed the four kids of kate, as she's my great grandaunt, and I can find nothing on them whatsoever...!

Thanks in advance for helping out, be great to find out something

Coolnabacky1873

The second name on this index is the 1917 marriage you want. Date and brides name match. You can apply for the record here.

Your best chance is to focus on the males as their names won't have changed, but obv Edward Ryan is very common.

If they owned the property they lived in in 1940 then you could focus on that and see did it end up being bequeathed to any of the children.

If they had a telephone in the 1940s then you could track the parents in the telephone books to see when they are no longer mentioned and this might indicate death.

Wills for their parents would usually list addresses of children, if you know what year after 1940 that their parents died.

If they lived in Brooklyn then the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper, published up to 1955, is an excellent source for death notices.

Unfortunately a lot of this stuff is not online and you need to visit the various repositories. Tracing after 1940 in the city is tough enough. Especially those common Irish names. I've had roughly a 50% success rate for clients. They can often retire to elsewhere too, such as Florida, or somewhere else in the south. You can end up chasing some of them all over the place!

hjr

Thanks Coolnabacky1873
I guess the looking is part of the challenge isn't it!

Frustrating to get to a point and hit a brick wall though, but somehow I'm sure something will turn up to point me in a direction.

By any chance is their a central record of deaths for New York? I'm sure Kate is deceased in New York somewhere, tho perhaps she remarried, I'm not sure.

hjr

Hi Coolnabacky1873,

Do you know much about The Globe Hotel? I seem to have traced one of my relatives there in 1940, Peter Cherry, but it says on the form that he also lived there in 1935. Is it some kind of hostel or almhouse or something?

Coolnabacky1873

Use the two links in my post to search for deaths up to 1948.

From 1949 onwards they are at the Dept of Health. It's can be rough dealing with them. There is a public index available up to 1981. Try Familysearch too.

Never heard of the hotel. Although I have seen examples on census returns of people living in a hospital/other place who were employees. See what is occupation is on the 1940 census.