Domelle's in the 1940 Federal Census

Still taking a detailed look through the 1940 census and this time I focused on looking for Domelle families.  It's another unusual surname like my Kleylein surname.  I wrote an earlier blog post that describes what I know about the origin of my Domelle line.  There are 2 variations on the name in the US, it's either "Domelle" or "Domele" and I'm told that the heads of the families of these 2 variants were cousins.  Whether they were first cousins or 15th cousins I have no idea but the name is rare enough that I'm relatively certain they are related.

Today I just looked in the 1940 US Federal census for any occurrence of the name "Domelle" or its variant "Domele".

Here is what I found:


1) There are 9 households of Domelles in the US in 1940 (6 Domelles and 3 Domeles).  There could be 1 or 2 more but they are currently spelled so incorrectly in the ancestry database that I couldn't find them.  I might stumble across them later.  :-)

2) 5 of them are in the northwest corner of Indiana (4 in Newton County, 1 in Lake County).

3) 3 of them are in Chicago, IL (not far from the northwest corner of Indiana - also 2 of those were young Domelle ladies on their own in the big city).

4) 1 of them wandered over to Tompkins County NY (thank goodness since that's where he met my grandmother!).


My direct line is the Newton County, Indiana 2-L Domelle branch of the family.  It's my grandfather there in NY - he left behind the farm in Newton County.

Below is a map showing the distribution.  Just one big cluster except for the 1 outlier over in NY.

Originally all the Domelles were in Chicago, but my great-grandfather and his brother moved down to Indiana to farm land for a family friend that owned it.