Families of the Presidential and VP Candidates in the 1940 Census

genealogical adventurer and storyteller

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In April of this year, the 1940 census was released after the usual 72-year privacy-restriction period. On the cusp of the Republican and Democratic national conventions, I thought it might be interesting to take a peek into the past of the families of the candidates for highest office. None of them had been born yet, so what follows are entries for a mix of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. I've opted to share them alphabetically - Biden, Obama, Romney and Ryan - and all records were located using the index created by the all-volunteer 1940 U.S. Census Community Project.