1940 US Census Records

Some of you may know the 1940 US Census records are now available online.  I've done a cursory review of the records for Bosque County and found several families in our group.  


The most important thing to remember is that the records are not yet indexed by name.  You must search by enumeration district.  To identify these districts you must look at the annotated county maps. You see the census map for most of Bosque County below.  


The enumation districts have numbers that begin with '18.'  The district for the town of Clifton is 18-18.  The map isn't all that detailed, so you may need to do some trial-and-error searching to find your target family.  For example, look at Norse.  It's a small town but it sits on the boundary of two districts: 18-19 & 18-20.  You may have to search both sets of records to find who you're looking for.  You'll see a link to the map on the Census Web site just under the image.  There are 6 map images for Bosque County, and Google doesn't allow much magnification, so you  may want to go to the Census site to get a really good look.  (You can see a highly-magnified view there.)
 

Link to map on Census Web site.

For example, here is the page showing the Louis Larson family in enumeration district no. 18-18.  (Louis was the husband of Lydia Rachuig.)  They appear starting at line no. 35.  (I've provided a link below to the page on the Census Web site, so you can see a highly-magnified view.)

Link to page on Census Web site.

This next page shows Emma Krueger on line no. 15.  Notice she runs a hotel in Clifton (distric no. 18-18).  (Click the link under the image to get a magnified view.)
 

Link to page on Census Web site.


Here is the page recording Hans Hanson's family in district no. 18-19.  They start on line no. 37.  Hulen (on line no. 39) later married Mildred Rachuig, daughter of Rudolph & Huldina Rachuig.

 

Link to page on Census Web site.

Louis Larson and Lydia Rachuig (Lange) Larson

(UPDATE) After correcting the photo shown above, I realized this can't be Richard Lange. I'm now reasonably sure this is Lydia's second husband, Louis Larson. I have a picture of them in late 1924. It's hard to tell exactly, but I think this is the same man.

Lanelle Schminke Sonntag provided this picture of her grandparents. I'm not positive, but this looks like a wedding photograph to me. I don't have the date of their marriage, but it must have been in 1907 or early 1908. Richard died very young in 1912. Lydia later married Louis Larson.

Richard's brother Otto married Lydia's older sister Johanna Martha Rachuig. I believe Otto also died at a young age. Otto and Johanna moved to New Mexico. Johanna lived there for most of her adult life. Their oldest son Accue E. Lange died in combat in France less than a month before the armistice that ended WWI.