Seven Decades Later, the 1950 Census Bares Its Secrets

[brooklynite]

New York Times

WASHINGTON — At 12:01 a.m. on Friday, precisely 72 years after enumerators began knocking on the doors of some 46 million American houses and apartments, the federal government will make public what they learned: the ages, incomes, addresses, ancestry and a trove of other facts about the 150.7 million people who were counted in the 1950 census.

Those millions of census forms, painstakingly filled out by hand in ink, will be posted online by the National Archives and Records Administration, which by law has kept them private until now. The records, searchable by name and address, will offer an intimate look at a nation on the cusp of the modern era — for the merely curious, a glimpse of the life parents or grandparents led, but for historians and genealogists, a once-in-a-decade bonanza of secrets unveiled.

“This is the Super Bowl and the Olympics combined, and it’s only every 10 years — it’s awesome stuff,” Matt Menashes, the executive director of the National Genealogical Society, said in an interview. “What’s so great about these points of data is that it helps you paint a picture — not just relationships, but what society was like.”

The last release of similar data was in 2012, when the National Archives made details of the 1940 census public. The government has imposed a 72-year ban on the release of census records since 1952, when the Census Bureau turned over to the National Archives all the data it had collected since the first census in 1790.

[Hoyt]

1. I've seen the records of my grandparents and parents. Very cool.

[csziggy]

2. I do a lot of genealogical research

And it is amazing what you can find out about families. For instance, one of my husband's great (whatever) grandmother "disappeared" from Kentucky, where she had lived all her life. His mother, who had researched his family, didn't follow siblings, just looked at direct line ancestors.

When I searched for the siblings of his ancestor, I found the mother living with one of her sons in Texas on the US Census. With that information, I was able to find her burial place and date of death.

Most years, the census also collects information on occupation, income, cost of habitation (whether rented or owned), and much more. Some years they found out the year of immigration (if not native born), and the nationality of the parents of the person - very helpful if you are trying to trace where people came from.

While my husband and I will not be listed on the 1950 census, our parents and my older siblings will be. I can get more information about family members and what they were doing. And for people just beginning to research their genealogy, this will help them a lot.

[Hoyt]

3. Once it's available, I'll definitely check. Lots of stuff I don't know about my folks.

[csziggy]

4. It's going to be fun to look at, for certain

I know where my parents were, and my father's parents. I know much less about my mother's parents, so I'd love to know where they were living and what my grandfather was doing in the 1950.

[myccrider]

14. I won't be on it, either...

I wasn’t born until 3 months later!

I do genealogy, too, and am looking forward to seeing what I find on this census (even if it won’t include me). Hopefully, I’ll get the address Mom & Dad were living at in Dallas, which would be cool. I may even remember that apartment, very vaguely. Then there’s the rest of the folks to track down. Good times!

I’ve also volunteered at FamilySearch to review the optical scan that Ancestry is doing to build an index to correct any errors. (It keeps me off the streets

[csziggy]

15. Well, I can find out my parents address before I was born

But that place no longer exists. Dad worked for a mining company and they have since mined where that town was. Same for the town he grew up in, nothing left.

I wish I could help with checking the OCR results, but I have no time. I'm putting together the history of a desk that my BIL has that was passed in his family down since at least 1779. Plus I am still trying to get all the family photos scanned and online. And I have other projects I am trying to finish. I'm getting old enough I can see I may not finish all my projects in my lifetime.

[myccrider]

19. I'm definitely not going to finish!

Age and health issues have finally convinced me that I’m mortal and can’t just put my head down and try harder to get things done.

I’m pretty sure the place Mom and Dad were living in 1950 is long gone, too, but it seems worse in some way that a mining company just "ate" the building and the town!

[Pas-de-Calais]

5. I got the families data when '40s census released

This release will provide more info


Good luck to all geneo hunters!

[Cheezoholic]

6. Thanx!!!!

I never knew this stuff was released like this, TY!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. When the 1940 census was released, I was able to find my grandparents.

Not that I didn't already know something about them, but I learned that my father and one of his brothers was still living at home.

In the 1950 census I should be able to find my own family, parents and siblings. There should not be any surprises, but it will still be fun.

[Rhiannon12866]

8. That's too early for my immediate family, but my grandmothers, parents, aunts and uncles will be there

And I think it was 10 years later that my mother started working for the census herself, she did it every 10 years after that...

[NBachers]

9. I'm in there!

[wnylib]

10. I will be on that census, less than a year old.

[PlanetBev]

11. I made my debut that year

But not till November. Simpler times, for sure.

[catchnrelease]

12. Me too

I had been looking forward to seeing myself in the report, but a while back I realized that since I was born in October I probably won't show up. Assuming that the census was done earlier in the year. But it should still be fun to see the rest of my family listed.

[question everything]

13. Would you have the URL? Thanks

[crickets]

16. Here you go -

NYT no paywall: https://archive.ph/SHqE3

National Archives 1950 Census Records: https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1950

What I'd like to know is why the wait for the information is precisely 72 years. I can understand putting a little distance, but it's as though there's a "wait for enough people to die" gap there. Ghoulish and strange.

[question everything]

17. Thanks. So far, confusing. Will have to give it another with a quiet head

[MineralMan]

18. Found myself and my family.

Link to site: https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1950

I was 5 years old in 1950. Cool beans!

It's a little confusing at first to use the search tools. If you search the state and county where you or the person you're looking for lived, enter a first and last name and then scroll down to find both in the listings. Then click on the Population Schedule button for the ED page where the full name is found to see the actual page.

To print the page, click the three dots and click Download to save the page as a jpg image. From there you can print your copy. I inserted the jpg into a Word document and sized to to fill the page. Printed out great.

[moonscape]

20. My parents escaped Eastern Europe the end

of WWII and emigrated to the US, where I was born. In 1950 they were farm hands in New England. Sadly, our family doesn’t seem to have been counted