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On page 6 of the 1940 Census Enumerator's instructions (page 4 of the printed manual) paragraph 19 reads:

Nonresident schedule. -- Members of a household who object to being included in the population of their district, claiming that their usual place of residence is elsewhere, are to be enumerated on the Nonresident Schedule. This schedule differs from the Population Schedule in that it includes an inquiry on the location of the usual place of residence as well as the place of residence at the time of the enumeration. It includes the supplementary questions, which are to be asked of all members of households enumerated on the Non-resident schedule.

A Google Search revealed a blog post, 1940 Census: non-resident form on Paula's Genealogical Eclectica with a link to an image. There are also other schedules which can be seen via the instructions for the Family Search indexers.

The 1940 census included several census schedules:

  • Population Schedule
  • Absent Household Schedule
  • Preliminary Population Schedule
  • Nonresident Schedule

Those instructions say:

When indexing one of these other schedules, index information for the fields that are available, and then either skip the remaining fields or mark them as blank, according to the instructions in the relevant field helps.

This implies that at least some of the non-population schedules were made available to the Family Search indexers. Are they also available online, along with the images for the Population Schedules? I've read the "about this collection" material on Ancestry.com, the FamilySearch Wiki, and the 1940 Census Website, and it's not clear to me how one might find someone if they were on one of these schedules and their names in the index were not spelled the way you would expect.

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When I read your question, I was very hopeful that perhaps an answer would also address my question "Transients and New Arrivals in the U.S. 1940 census". However, it seems that the Non-Resident schedule form (whenever it was used) was appended to the regular forms at the end of the enumeration district. Ancestry did not index the page used as an example in the blog posting, but it is indexed at FamilySearch. The same pattern (image at the end of the ED) is present at 1940 Census.

Between NARA and Internet Archive, a number of other nonpopulation schedules for 1940 are referenced (Business, Agriculture, Housing), but only the tabulated statistics are available at Internet Archive, not the raw data. There are Native American Census images for a time span up to 1940 that are available at Internet Archive that include names and personal details.

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  • Your question was what prompted mine, but SE complained when I tried to link to it. I know I have missing people in 1940 and now I wonder if they might be on these schedules. If we can walk through the images the old-school way, it's better than nothing. Note that the NR forms have the answers to the supplemental questions for everyone on the form.
    – Jan Murphy
    Commented Dec 1, 2013 at 17:15
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    I'm at 8% not found for the 1940 census - about 190 individuals. That includes people for whom I don't yet have enough background information (maiden name, birth info) to effectively search for them, and more that just can't be found in the indexes. Further work may find them if mis-transcribed or prove they were omitted. Did you know that the enumeration sheets for those on active Navy duty were destroyed [archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ADVANCED-RESEARCH/…?
    – bgwiehle
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 14:00
  • Interesting link -- thanks! Morse and Weintraub are extremely thorough, but if someone was looking, I think it would be best to follow up with an inquiry to someone at NARA or the Census Bureau. Part of my drive to find "vital records" for buildings is to narrow down the search for people I can't find in the 1930 Census.
    – Jan Murphy
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 17:14

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