Records being made available in what is called largest federal release of genealogical data

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Ken Macomber wants to learn more about what life was like for his father at the dawn of the Great Depression. Curt Witcher is looking for clues about his grandfather's younger days

Monday, April 1st 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Ken Macomber wants to learn more about what life was like for his father at the dawn of the Great Depression. Curt Witcher is looking for clues about his grandfather's younger days in Indiana.

They hope the National Archives' release Monday of personal records from the 1930 census helps fill in the pages of their respective family histories.

A 72-year prohibition on public release of the 1930 records expired Monday. Historians say this is the largest release of genealogical data by the U.S. government.

``This is huge,'' said Macomber, a genealogist from Burke, Va. Besides his father, he is looking for details about other relatives who were living in Pennsylvania and West Virginia at the time.

``The axiom for family history is to start with the known and look for the unknown,'' Macomber said.

The release goes beyond the dry statistics typically released a year after the once-a-decade count. Americans can view the answers their parents and grandparents gave.

Some questions will look familiar: What is your name? What is your sex? Are you single or married? Others are a sign of the times, such as the question that asked, ``Does this household have a radio set?''

``It is probably the single most important record release at the federal level in the first decade of the 21st century,'' said Witcher, of Fort Wayne, Ind., president of the National Genealogical Society.

The count was taken April 1, 1930, just over five months after the October 1929 stock market crash that plunged the country into depression. One question asked whether someone had worked the previous day; another asks to give what ``class of worker'' you are.

``It is at this pivotal point of history, poised between two tumultuous but very different decades, that enumerators of the 1930 census captured a statistical snapshot of our nation,'' said John Carlin, archivist of the United States.

No forms were mailed. All homes were visited by a census taker, who read off a series of 32 questions and recorded responses by hand.

Original 1930 forms were destroyed in the 1940s, but not before copies were saved on microfilm.

That microfilm is being made available to the public for research at the National Archives' headquarters in Washington, as well as 13 other archives offices around the country.

Historians recommend that novice researchers gather as much background as possible on their relatives before visiting the archives. Name indices are incomplete for many states, so family members may have to be researched through addresses.