Ancestry.com Preps for Flood of Census Queries

The subscription-based website for finding long-lost relatives already has 6.7 billion historical records and 4.8 billion people named in family trees on its website. But now it's adding the 1940 United States Federal Census, which the federal government will release on Monday. The National Archives has turned the 1940 census paperwork into more than 3.8 million digital images. The online archive--being released after a 72-year waiting period--will be a gold mine for people just beginning to compile their family history, though it will become easier to use once the images are indexed. The company learned its lesson two years ago from a huge spike in website traffic during the TV show "Who Do You Think You Are," in which celebrities such as Sarah Jessica Parker discover clues about their ancestors.