Look through that haystack no more. As of today, you can put in a name to search for the New Yorkers in your family in the 1940 U.S. Census on Ancestry.com.
New York – or, more accurately, all 13 million of its 1940 residents – is the latest state to be indexed on Ancestry.com. So whether you’re searching upstate or the Big Apple, now it just takes a name to get started (although a birth year, place and other details help, too). Plug the details into the search box and see what happens.
Search 1940 New York.