Interest in census paralyzes website
NEW YORK – Interest in the newly released 1940 U.S. census is so great that the government website with the information was nearly paralyzed shortly after the records became available to the public for the first time.
Miriam Kleiman, spokeswoman for the U.S. National Archives, told the Associated Press that the site registered more than 22 million hits in just four hours on Monday, from almost 2 million users. In a tweet posted after 5 p.m. on its official Twitter account, the archives said the website had received 37 million hits since the information was released at 9 a.m.
The government released the records for the first time after 72 years of confidentiality expired.
It’s the largest collection of digital information ever released by the National Archives. The records allow individuals and families to learn details about their past.
Monday’s release includes digitized records for details on 132 million people. Access to the records is free and open to anyone online, but they are not yet searchable by name.