The 1950 Census is Here!

The 1950 Census is Here!

The excitement is real for genealogy fans. On April 1st, the 1950 Census was released by the National Archives. The 1950 census is available to browse at the National Archives website: https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1950

This census is not yet fully indexed, but there is a search engine for the AI (machine) index- it\'s kind of like OCR for handwriting, so you can imagine how imperfect it might be. You might be lucky with a first name/last name search, but if you do not find who you are looking for, try again after a few weeks.
Try these steps to find your ancestors:
  • If you know the complete street address, city and state, use this website to determine the Enumeration District: https://stevemorse.org/census/unified.html
  • At the National Archives site linked above, use the ED # to search for your ancestors. You may need to scroll through several pages.
  • Check the pages at the end of each film set for the enumeration of those who were \"not at home\" when the census taker came by the first time.

If you have questions or want an overview of this process, sign up for our May 17th program: Your Guide to the 1950 Census with Lisa Louise Cooke. This virtual program will not  be recorded, register here!

1950 census snip