Add a Transcription to Improve NARA's 1950 Census Index

Waiting for the big genealogy sites to index the entire 1950 US Census, I've been using the US National Archives site to locate my ancestors in that Census. Thankfully, NARA released a preliminary name index along with the images of the Census sheets, allowing for both name search and browsing. 

I've been most successful in locating ancestors when I try my search by inputting the state, county, Enumeration District, and surname of head of household.

Searching for Carrie

Above, results of my search for hubby's great aunt in ED 88-26 of Wyandot County, Ohio. Her name was Carrie E. Traxler. My search was for Traxler Carrie because the automated systems transcribed what they "read" on each line, and head of household was listed Surname Given. 

NARA's system can match on creative spelling, and the first result was the ancestor I wanted--even though the transcription wasn't perfect. Her name was NOT Traller Carriee, as the system read the enumerator's handwriting. But it's close!

Adding a transcription

NARA welcomes the public's assistance in adding correct transcriptions. It will accept both transcriptions that correct what the automated system says AND transcriptions that correct what the enumerator wrote. Note that this will not alter the actual Census in any way. It will improve the search system so others can find ancestors on the NARA 1950 Census site.

After I made a note of the line number where my husband's great aunt appears, here's how I added a transcription to correct her name as transcribed by the automated system.

First, I clicked the button to "Help Us Transcribe Names" and entered my email. NARA sent me a six-digit verification code, which I entered so I could begin my transcription. 

Next, I used the NARA drop-down menu to indicate line number...which took me to a blank of the screen shown above. I typed "Traxler" for last name, "Carrie" for first name, and "E" for middle name--all of which are shown in cursive handwriting on the Census form, but not accurately read by the automated system.

Other family members with same surname in same HH?

After submitting a transcription, NARA said thank you and invited me to "Add a transcription to the next line."

If Carrie Traxler's household included a husband or child or anyone with same surname directly below her name, I would click to add their surname.

This is a key step for families that share a surname and were enumerated in the same household. I didn't do it for Carrie, but I did do it for many other ancestors who had folks with same surname in that HH. 

Otherwise, the search system can't find these people by their full names. Remember, they would have been enumerated with a dash for surname, followed by a given name. My transcription replaces the dash with the actual surname.

"How do you spell that?" is the #52Ancestors prompt by Amy Johnson Crow for week #15.

1950 US Census: Read the Notes!

 

Enumerators sometimes wrote notes on the 1950 US Census. The notes section may be near top, middle, or bottom of the page, depending on which version of the questionnaire was being used.

In most cases, the notes mentioned where a missing resident might be enumerated elsewhere in that ED (sheet number, line number). At least two of my ancestors, living in big city apartments, weren't home on the first call--and were never actually interviewed. The notes said something like "Superintendent provided information after 4 calls." 

Enumerators occasionally noted that they had left income forms for residents to fill out and return confidentially. Others noted the presence of more than one apartment at a dwelling or the fact that an address was a vacant dwelling.

You just never know what little details you'll learn if you read the notes! Some interesting notes I've found so far:

• "Line 26--Person just arrived from Canada. Sister-in-law supplied information and couldn't tell former occupation."
• "Lines 6-8 - Respondent vague on answers--couldn't remember ages."
• "Line __, serial no. 80. Rent of $40.00 is out of reason, about $15.00 should be right."
• "I left [Census] line for a locked gate and then I got information from neighbors."
• "Person is in reserve Navy."
  
• "Information given by daughter staying there while parents are away."
• "Line 1 is a female even though name is William T."
  
• "On vacation, don't know when she will be home."

I'm delighted to participate in this month's Genealogy Blog Party by going back to the 1950s!

1950 US Census: What Works?

Trying to find my ancestors in the 1950 US Census, I settled on a number of techniques that work well.

• For best results, locate the ancestor's Enumeration District. Don't know the ED but have an address? Use Ancestry's 1950 Census District Finder tool (link is on the home page). It's the fastest way to transform a street address into an ED. It also takes you to the ED maps in case you want to look for landmarks. Read Ancestry's explanation here.
• Using NARA's search interface, enter the location (state/county). Then add the ED. Read the description of the ED. In example above, I'm showing ED 60-36 for Maury County, TN. The ED description matches where I wanted to search.
• Add head of house as surname given name. In example above, this would be Hanes Bernard (his name is Bernard Hanes, but listing in Census is by surname first).
  
• This should narrow your search to a single ED and the correct page, as shown at top. Even though the automated indexing didn't correctly transcribe the given name, it did make the find for me.

What if this doesn't work? Remove the name and only search for the ED. Then browse the ED, page by page, to find your ancestor. I had to do this in more than one instance, but having the correct ED meant I browsed perhaps a dozen pages in.

Why isn't my ancestor shown in the right place?

Lots of people weren't home when the enumerator visited. April 1st was a Saturday in 1950 and some folks were out! 

If the person wasn't home, the enumerator would usually note on that address line, sending you to "sheet 71, line 3" or something similar to find the person who would ordinarily be at that address. Always check pages at the end of the ED. 

Starting with sheet 71, enumerators listed people who they interviewed on a subsequent visit. I've seen as many as 10 additional pages for callbacks in a single large ED.  Check the end of every ED if you don't find your ancestor where expected.

Download the page

Download the Census page showing your ancestor so you can study it further and even upload to your family tree. To do this, look at top right corner of the image of that page in the ED (see above example). Click on the three vertical dots and then click on the word download. 

Once the page downloads, rename that page so you know what it is. In this case, I named the file Hanes_Bernard_1950Census.jpg. Then I put it into a dedicated 1950 US Census folder on my desktop. Later, I'll copy it into my "Hanes" genealogy folder and upload it to my various family trees.

Happy hunting! I'm still looking for more ancestors and then will widen my search for FAN club members. 

PS: Here's what blogger Amanda Pape suggests: "If the ED that Ancestry's 1950 Census District Finder tool turns out to be the wrong ED (and that has happened to me a lot, particularly in large cities like Houston and Chicago), then use the Steve Morse tools (that you've blogged about before). I've also had some luck, when the Ancestry ED is wrong, just searching by state, county (or city/county), and just the surname (if unique enough) or the HOH surname & first name combo. I'll usually try that first before moving on to Steve Morse." 

Important Last-Minute 1950 US Census Info

We have less than a month to wait for the release of 1950 US Census!

The US National Archives (NARA) has begun posting a series of video presentations to help us get ready to find ancestors in this mid-century Census. No preregistration, no fee, just click to watch.

You can see the full schedule and watch individual videos, as they're posted, on this YouTube page. If you watch as each video debuts, you can participate in live Q&A via chat and get answers from experts in the know! If you watch after that time, you can still read the entire Q&A in the chat box, but you can't ask new questions.

Two highlights from talk by Claire Kluskens

The initial presentation in the National Archives series took place yesterday, March 2d. Here are two of many key takeaways from this excellent talk by Claire Kluskens. 

• Look for Sheet #71. Once you've determined that your ancestor is likely to be in a particular Enumeration District, be sure to browse the final ED pages. You're looking for sheet #71. Why? Because if your ancestor wasn't home when the enumerator came calling the first time, that household would likely have been enumerated out of order. The details would have been written on sheet #71. Remember, even if an ED was tiny and had only 12 pages, there will be a sheet #71 if any household was enumerated out of order for some reason. It's not that sheets were missing between page 12 and page 71.  The Census Bureau deliberately designated Sheet #71 as the page where households enumerated out of order would be recorded in each ED. So always go to the end and look for sheet #71 (sheet numbers are at far right corner of population schedule, see star in image above).

• 
  Look at notes section. As shown here, the notes section is a blank area midway on the page. Enumerators might write comments or explanations here (such as whether an age is actually an estimate or whether a respondent might not be telling the truth). Also see whether the little box (red arrow) is checked. If your ancestor is enumerated on the final line(s) of that page, the box being checked is an indication to continue onto the next page to see more people in that same household. Do glance at the notes, if any, and look for the check box.

Don't wait--download NARA presentation slides now!

I highly recommend watching Claire's talk and downloading her slides from this pdf. That way, you'll have the slides at hand for reference.

The next two speakers in the NARA series have already posted their slides for download. I can't stress enough how valuable these slides are, jam-packed with information that will help us find ancestors when the Census is released on April 1. 

Right now: 

Download the March 30th pdfs by Michael L. Knight because you will see, for the very first time, what the 1950 US Census website will look like! 

Here is one excerpt from his talk. The "Begin search" button will lead to a search interface. The "How to search" button will explain the different methods of searching (by location or by name). He shows a sample name search and a sample location search. 

These videos and downloaded slides will give you a headstart before the 1950 Census is actually released!

For more about the preparing for the 1950 US Census release, please see my summary page here.

1950 US Census Project: FAN Club

My friend Paul, president of a local genealogy club, suggested a 1950 US Census project that sounds like fun as well as a great way to learn more about ancestors' FAN club (friends, associates, neighbors). 

After April 1, when the US Census is made public, we can not only search for ancestors, but look at who lived nearby. Whether we find each ancestor using the basic surname search or do homework to browse (as in this example) the proper Enumeration District, we can then click through each page in the ED to spot familiar names, addresses, ages, birthplace details, and much more.

Hello neighbor

This is a more deliberate effort to actively search out FAN club members. I usually look at the page before and after where my ancestor is in the ED, hoping to find other relatives or familiar names. But Paul's idea is to proactively search out FAN club names we already know as well as investigating the entire ED where an ancestor lives, looking for FAN club members we might not know or expect to find there.

Because my parents lived in a large apartment building in the Bronx, New York, I'll be browsing that ED to look at their neighbors. This 1950 US Census will also tell me more about my father's family, because his widowed mother, unmarried brother, and married sister lived in the same apartment building. 

Seeing who else was in each apartment, and reading about their background will help me understand family dynamics at that time. There may even be people who were temporarily visiting on Census Day--if I'm lucky, possibly a cousin or an aunt or someone's mother-in-law. Plus I'll be browsing for names of people on the block or around the corner that I remember my parents mentioning in conversation.

Friend, neighbor, in-law?

I'm lucky to have my mother's 1953ish address book with names, street addresses, and phone numbers of family and neighbors. I don't recognize every name, but some might be distant relatives and some might be in-laws. I'll be watching for them in the Census to clarify potential family connections.

Similarly, the 1950 Census will enable me to learn more about the names in my late father-in-law's diaries. He mentioned people who I suspect were friends and neighbors in Cleveland Heights. I'll search for them, see where they lived, how close their residence was to the Wood residence, and whether there are any fresh clues to relationships (business or personal). 

Paul will be searching for the surnames of kids he remembers from his early childhood. The outcome will be a map of his neighborhood, with relatives and FAN club members marked by location.

Will you be working on a 1950 US Census FAN club project?

Latest News: 1950 US Census Release

This week, the US National Archives announced that when it releases the 1950 US Census records on April 1, 2022, a basic surname search function will be available!

The key is the use of artificial intelligence and OCR (optical character recognition) technologies to decipher handwritten names on the population schedules. You can read the details here. 

Also, on a recent Extreme Genes podcast, Scott Fisher asked Jim Ericson of FamilySearch.org about the timeline for indexing the 1950 US Census. The response: Family Search hopes to have the 1950 Census indexed by the fall of 2022, thanks to new technology and more volunteers. Plus the effort will capture even more of the details beyond name! You can read the transcript of the podcast here.

For a bit of mid-century Census advertising, take a look at good ole Uncle Sam, above. He was the star of one of the print ads created to promote participation in the count. See this NARA page for a full selection of ads leading up to April 1, 1950.

Are you getting ready for this exciting Census release? Please check my page of tips and analysis here. I also give a webinar about the unique genealogical info in this Census, and how to find ancestors before indexing is complete. Here's a link to my presentation schedule. Happy ancestor hunting!

1950 US Census: "Separated" Added as Marital Status

To be ready when the 1950 Census is released on April 1, 2022 (woo hoo!), I'm reading background information and thinking about what ancestors' responses could reveal about family history. 

If you have ancestors enumerated in the 1950 Census, do check out the summary report(s) for the state(s) where they lived in 1950. The reports are digitized and available at HathiTrust. The excerpt above is from the introduction to the results summary for New York State, where so many of my ancestors lived at the time. 

Separated, divorced, widowed?

"Separated" was a new category for marital status in the 1950 US Census. That's a plus for genealogical researchers, if our ancestors answered truthfully. 

In earlier years, a few of my ancestors said they were "widowed" rather than admit to being separated or divorced. Maybe in 1950, they answered "separated" because it was a little less of a stigma than "divorced" was at the time? 

As shown in the excerpt at top, the Census Bureau noted that this new "separated" category may have lowered the number of people recorded as "divorced." 

But read further, and see how the Census Bureau dealt with situations in which no marital status was recorded by the enumerator.

"Estimated" marital status

The Census Bureau "estimated" marital status in situations where the enumerator, for whatever reason, didn't record an individual's marital status.

The "estimate" was made on the basis of age and presence of spouse or children in the household.

So some individuals who were recorded as "single" under 1940 US Census rules might be recorded in 1950 as "married, spouse absent" or "widowed." Interesting clues.

Who's telling the truth?

What about my great aunt Nellie Block, who previously told enumerators she was single? In the US and NY Census documents I've checked, Nellie lived alone or was a boarder in someone else's apartment. She never had any spouse or children in the household with her, so far as I could see. She consistently said she was single. 

Yet when Nellie died late in 1950, she was supposedly widowed, according to her brother, the informant for her death cert. Who was telling the truth, Nellie or her brother? Looking forward to seeing how her marital status was recorded in the 1950 Census.

1950 US Census: "Errors in Age Statistics"

Before the 1950 US Census is released on April 1, 2022, I'm doing background reading to understand what the population schedule will tell me about my ancestors.

I recommend looking at the state-by-state results published by the US Census Bureau in 1954 and available for free at HathiTrust. Browse the list until you see the state(s) where your ancestors lived. Many of my ancestors lived in New York, so I've been clicking my way through that statewide report of 1950 Census results.

No matter which state report you read, you'll see the same introductory information that will add context to the 1950 Census results. 

Look at reported age, for instance, which we know isn't always accurate on Census forms. Women, in particular, might fudge age downward. In fact, both my grandmas were sensitive about being a year older than their husbands, and lied to enumerators in more than one Census. But there were other reasons for age errors, as well.

The Census Bureau knew about age errors 

As shown in the introduction excerpt above, the Census Bureau was well aware of "errors in age statistics." Young children tended to be undercounted, a situation that was partially fixed by the use of Infant Cards written out by enumerators for kids born in Jan-Feb-March of 1950. Sadly, these info-rich cards were not retained and we won't have access to that valuable data.

In addition, errors were noted among older age groups. The Census Bureau said there were fewer than expected people enumerated in the 55-64 age group, but more than expected enumerated in the 65+ age group. 

Suddenly so many seniors?

Coincidence? Maybe, but my guess is this had to do with post-war retirements and people wanting to collect Social Security at age 65. With an eye toward eligibility, I suspect lots of folks were suddenly willing to admit to a government agency that they were 65 or older. 

This was an actual problem for my hubby's maternal grandpa, Brice Larimer McClure (1878-1970) He told employers he was younger than he really was so he could work all during World War II. 

Once the war was over, however, Brice was already over 65. At that point, he had difficulty straightening out his age documentation so he could collect Social Security payments. He eventually did manage to collect, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he said about his age on the 1950 US Census!

For more background about preparing for the release of the 1950 US Census, please see my summary page here.

Prepping for the 1950 US Census: NARA ED Maps

I've been researching the street addresses and Enumeration Districts of dozens of ancestors, with the goal of being able to browse for these folks when the 1950 US Census pages are released (unindexed) on April 1. Most of these ancestors lived in urban areas, although a few were in rural areas.

Unified Census ED Finder doesn't cover every street in every town

Researching ancestors in rural Upper Sandusky, Wyandot County, Ohio, I was unable to find the town in Steve Morse and Joel Weintraub's Unified Census ED Finder tool. This is the easy-to-use tool I normally use to transform a street address into an Enumeration District. 

As shown in image at top, Wyandot is one of the few counties where the Steve Morse/Joel Weintraub tool has no provision for town or street address input. See FAQs 302 and 403 for an explanation.**

Because I do have a street address, I've learned to use National Archives's Enumeration District maps to locate the appropriate ED.

NARA Enumeration District maps to the rescue

To reach the ED maps via Steve Morse's site, click on the link titled "Viewing ED Maps in One Step." It's at the very bottom of the page (see brown arrow). Or click to reach that link here. 

At the Steve Morse link, once you enter the state, county, and town, you'll be taken to a page like the following:

Now you can choose the NARA viewer OR go directly to the images on the NARA server. Both work, just read the advantages and disadvantages to see which you prefer. 

Here is the small version of the NARA map for Upper Sandusky, Wyandot County, OH. I clicked to enlarge the map and looked around each ED until I located the ancestor's street address on West Bigelow.

As a result, I discovered my husband's great aunt Etta Blanche Steiner Rhuark's residence in ED 88-27. Next April, I'll be browsing pages of that ED to find her.

Let me call attention to Beth Finch McCarthy's excellent graphic about preparing to browse the 1950 US Census, including the use of NARA maps.

--

**Joel Weintraub explains: The National Archives has stated that urban areas of 5 or more EDs should have online 1950 ED maps, although I've seen such maps with less than that. Our One-Step criteria for street indexes are the location should have 5 or more EDs and also have 5,000 or more people. Upper Sandusky according to my information had 4,397 people in 1950 so I didn't include it on my list of areas to be done. We still have a database for searching ED definitions. In your case.... go to the Unified Tool, pick Ohio, pick from the city list "Other (specify)" which opens a box where you can type Upper Sandusky. You should then see 7 EDs with that name on the their ED transcribed description... on the lower left. Click on "more details" and you should see the ED transcribed definitions for each of the seven which also may help determine the exact ED wanted.

1950 US Census: New Grade Codes

The 1950 US Census, to be released in April of 2022, has a mass of little details that will add nuance to my knowledge of family history.

Educational codes in 1950

In 1950, enumerators were trained to record the highest grade level attained by each person in the household using highly specific codes (see top). 

Note that in 1950, kindergarten has a separate code (K). "Junior High" and "Senior High" have distinct codes, as well.

These codes differ from codes used to indicate educational attainment in the 1940 US Census. 

Educational codes in 1940

Enumerators in the 1940 Census didn't distinguish between "junior" and "senior" high school. They recorded 1-8 for grade school and H1, H2, H3, H4 for high school grades. 

In 1940, there was no kindergarten code. College grades were C1-4 for college and C5 for post-graduate attainment, codes that remained the same in the 1950 Census.

I'll be interested to see which of my ancestors progressed beyond high school by the time of the 1950 Census. 

In the 1940 Census snippet shown here, head of household Milton was a high school graduate. Wife Irene had completed 8th grade, meaning no high school. One daughter was a high school graduate (H4) and the other was a freshman in high school (H1). 

The men listed on the last two lines were Irene's bachelor brothers, who supposedly finished 8th grade, according to the 1940 Census. I'm not sure this is entirely accurate. Let's see what the 1950 Census says! 

Finding a Farmer in the 1950 US Census

None of my immigrant ancestors lived on a farm after arriving in the United States. Several in-laws were born on farms, but by 1950, they lived in cities. 

Still, I wanted to experiment with the super-useful "Unified Census ED Finder" on Steve Morse's One-Step page to locate someone living on a farm in 1950. 

Remember, we need the Enumeration District Finder before the 1950 US Census is indexed. Not being able to "search" by name, we're going to be browsing the Census by address, one page of one ED at a time, in search of ancestors. 

With cities and suburbs, that's not so difficult because we can narrow things down by including cross streets and back streets (see my earlier post here). Then we only have to browse pages of one ED (or perhaps two).

What about farm addresses? In the past, farms might get their mail via RFD, not listing a street address. Without an address or at least a specific street, the ED Finder can't help us narrow down the number of enumeration districts we'll have to browse. Time to experiment!

First step: Try to find the 1950 address

For my experiment, I chose Lyman Orchards in Middlefield, CT, which has been in the Lyman family since 1741. (I've visited the orchard in the past and enjoyed the sunflower maze, by the way.)

My reasoning: If the family's name is on the farm, I can more easily find the owner in a Census or other document. Luckily, the website has a timeline and indicates names of owners through the years. 

Checking for a 1940 US Census or WWII draft registration or a local phone or farm directory with the farm owner's name will help me guesstimate a 1950 address.

Very quickly, I found WWII draft registration cards for one of the owners, John Lyman, and his son. But no street address, only the town and county names.

In the 1940 US Census, the Lyman family was living on Center Street, no house number. John Lyman told the enumerator he had his own business, managing Lyman Farm. Also, the Census asked whether the address is a farm and the enumerator has written "yes." So now I'll try Center Street as a starting point for the ED Finder.

Next: Use ED Finder to narrow down browsing possibilities

In the Unified Census ED Finder (be sure it's set for 1950), I entered Connecticut as the state and Middlesex as the county. Middlefield wasn't listed as a town, so I chose "Other" and typed in Middlefield.

The result is shown at top. No streets available, but three possible EDs to browse.

But wait. See the words "More details" on a link to the right of the three ED numbers?

When I clicked, I saw this table of street boundaries. Helpful hints!

Looking for a better street address

Before I can narrow down the EDs, I still need to know where Center Street is in Middlefield. Consulting maps, I found it's no longer a street in that town, even though it may have been a street in 1950. 

NOTE: You may find this situation if your ancestors lived in rural areas. Some towns made an effort to provide both street names and house numbers so emergency services could find anyone if necessary. Having a street address also meant the tax collector could locate a particular property. Not all areas have street addresses, to this day. Also, street names do change from time to time, especially as areas become more developed.

I conducted an online search for "list of streets in Middlefield, CT" and came across this contemporary listing: 

https://geographic.org/streetview/usa/ct/middlesex/middlefield.html

No Center Street listed. But there is a Lyman Road! Hmm.

I reread the history of Lyman Orchards and learned that the huge farmhouse was converted to a wedding venue 20+ years ago. The address today is: 5 Lyman Road. 

Evaluating ED details to narrow the focus

With that in mind, I'm evaluating the details of the three possible EDs for farmer John Lyman. Two seem to be focused on Middletown, which is adjacent to Middlefield. I pulled up a listing of contemporary streets in Middletown for comparison purposes.

Looking at the ED 4-41 details, Westfield and Camp are in the listing of streets I found in Middletown. So I'm not making 4-41 a priority. Butternut, Wadsworth, and Cross are also in the listing of streets in Middletown, this time for ED 4-42. Not making 4-42 a priority. Both of these EDs appear to be more focused on Middletown than Middlefield.

Therefore, my educated guess is that I'll find John Lyman and family in ED 4-31. That's the main ED for Middlefield town. Let's see what happens in April of 2022!

-- "On the farm" is Amy Johnson Crow's #52Ancestors challenge for week 37.

1950 US Census: Which Ancestors Were Working?

One of the key questions I hope will be answered by the release of 1950 US Census in April of 2022 is which of my ancestors were working, and their occupations.

Overall trends in 1950 employment

Shown in the above table from a US Census special report issued in 1953 is a comparison of how many men and women in each age group (14 and older) were working in 1950, compared with 1940. These aggregate statistics provide context for understanding the situations of my ancestors who were enumerated in 1950.

Notice that in the lower bar chart, significantly more women were working in 1950 (solid black bar) compared with the number working in 1940. The big exception is women aged 20-30ish. 

Given the unprecedented Baby Boom that took place from 1946 on, I suspect these women were taking care of children and homes, not working outside the home in 1950. That was the general pattern in my family tree, although some women were in the work force in addition to being wives and mothers. In most cases, my female ancestors were working as teachers, I understand from family documents and stories.

Occupations and "not working"

I'll be interested to see not just who's working, but what occupations they were pursuing. For the teachers, enumerators were supposed to note the subject being taught--a bonus detail for me as the family historian.

The Census also noted when people over age 14 were not working, and why. Enumerators the reason why someone was not in the labor force, classified as (1) keeping house, (2) unable to work, (3) in an institution, or (4) "other" - meaning students, retired, seasonal workers, etc. 

I expect a number of my ancestors to be in the "other" category of reasons for not working, due to retirement or being full-time students. 

Can't wait to find out when the 1950 Census is released next year.

-- "Work" is Amy Johnson Crow's theme for this week in the #52Ancestors challenge.

1950 US Census: How Do My Ancestors Compare?

 

When the 1950 U.S. Census is released on April 1, 2022, I'll have to browse for my ancestors by Enumeration District. No index, no transcriptions, just page-by-page browsing when the Census is initially made public.

After I find ancestors, I'll want to interpret their answers to Census questions in the context of the time and place.

Census number-crunching

The government has already crunched many numbers from the 1950 Census and released analyses (now online).

For instance, one of the Census questions is about 1949 income. I expect my middle-class ancestors will be above the national average of $3,100 in annual family income. The Census Bureau table at top right summarizes the number of families in each income bracket during 1949.

The Census Bureau also released reports about general population characteristics, based on analyses of 1950 Census data. 

As shown at left, the number of college graduates increased dramatically from 1940 to 1950, according to Census data.

Many in my mother's and father's generation were the first in the family to attend or graduate college, being the children of immigrants. A good number of these ancestors served during World War II and went to college on the G.I. Bill.

In my husband's family, ancestors were long-established in their communities and some represented the third generation to go to college. Being aware of these trends and each family's history will help me understand the answers I see in the 1950 Census.

Census by region

For comparison purposes, the Census Bureau also reported statistics by region. Many of my hubby's ancestors lived in the North Central region, while many of my ancestors lived in the Northeast region. As I interpret the answers of our ancestors, I'll try to compare them with their counterparts in the same region, as well as with national trends for that era. 

Read up in advance and be ready for the 1950 U.S. Census release in 2022.

For more about the 1950 US Census release in 2022, see my summary page here.

Prepping for 1950 US Census: Address Details Matter!

As I prep for the release of the 1950 U.S. Census on April 1, 2022, I'm listing  ancestors and researching their 1950 addresses. This helps me find the correct ED (Enumeration District) for browsing Census images before indexing and transcription are completed.

A fair number of ancestors in my tree and hubby's tree are listed in directories. This makes it easy to take the street address and look up the enumeration district (ED) using Steve Morse & Joel Weintraub's fantastic "Unified Census ED Finder" tool. 

North, south, east, or west?

When I was looking for the ED of one of my husband's Larimer ancestors, I used the drop-down menus on the ED Finder tool to specify state (Indiana), county (Elkhart), and and town (Goshen). See image at bottom of post.

Next, I entered the exact number of the residence, which is 205 North 8th Street.

However, the street name on the drop-down menu is shown only as "8th" with no provision for north or south. See the green oval on the image below.

Without specifying north or south, the finder gives me 6 possible EDs (see image at bottom). Yikes, too many!

I mapped both 205 S. 8th (not where the ancestor lived) and 205 N. 8th (star shows correct location). As image at top shows, these two addresses are nowhere near each other and would not be in the same ED! I need to narrow things down.

Use map and cross streets 

The ED Finder can get me much closer to the actual street address. It instructs me to click to look at the map (see purple arrow pointing to "Google map" on image below). 

The next step is to locate a cross street and/or a back street. Those are boundaries for enumerators, and will reduce the number of EDs in which an address might be located. 

Tracing 205 N. 8th, I saw a prominent back street on the same block: Crescent. When I entered that into the ED Finder tool, only a single ED showed up: 20-69.

Paying attention to this address detail will spare me a lot of unnecessary browsing when the Census is made public next year.

Try the Unified Census ED Finder and see how easy it is to locate your ancestor's Enumeration District.

For more posts about prepping for the 1950 Census, please see my summary page.

1950 Census Occupations: Special Care!

 

As part of my prep for the release of the 1950 Census on April 1, 2022, I'm making notes about items to check when I browse the images for key ancestors. The 1950 Census has so much detail for genealogy purposes...including occupation. 

How will the 1950 US Census show the occupation of my ancestors? Some worked in "occupations for which special care is necessary" according to the instructions in the Enumerator's Reference Manual, which can be read and downloaded for free. But there are distinctions, and I'm not sure exactly how the enumerator will have captured the exact nature of these occupations.

Dad = travel agent or business owner?

Will the 1950 enumerator specify that my father, Harold Burk (1909-1978) was not just an agent but a travel agent? Or will the enumerator show him as a business owner (of the Burk Travel Service in Manhattan)?

My uncle, Sidney Burk (1914-1995), also worked in the business. Will he be shown as a travel agent, specifically? 

Uncle = teacher?

Will the 1950 enumerator specify that my uncle, Fred Shaw (1912-1991), was an economics or history teacher at a high school in New York City? The enumerator is supposed to identify the main subject taught by teachers. I'm going to see which subject was considered my uncle's main subject, since he taught both.

When is a clerk not a clerk?

The instructions say that a clerk who sells items in a store is to be enumerated as a salesman. A few of my ancestors worked in retailing. Will the Census show their occupations as clerk or as salesman or saleswoman?? I can't wait to find out.

Surprise?

Think about what you expect to see as your ancestors' occupations on the 1950 Census, and whether any special rules for enumerators apply. You may be surprised to see just how the occupations are described--and in how much detail.

Looking Back at the 1950 Census in the News

Prepping for the public release of the 1950 U.S. Census in April, 2022, I'm searching newspapers that cover the areas where my ancestors lived during the spring of 1950. 

Not only am I researching my ancestors, I'm putting the Census into context and learning more about how people thought about the Census back then.

Names and Faces in the News

First, I do a name search (creative spelling of surname, nicknames, maiden names, and so on). Maybe one of my ancestors or a FAN club person was mentioned as a Census taker? 

Here's another angle to consider: Was an ancestor quoted in a story about the Census, perhaps talking about being enumerated or expressing an opinion about the process? 

On March 26, 1950, The Brooklyn Eagle (New York City) interviewed eight local residents who were outraged at the personal questions about income. The article included photos, names, and addresses of those interviewed! 

Other news items (including a January, 1950 story from the Los Angeles Times) also quoted people who were unhappy about the income question. None were my ancestors, but you might be luckier.

Fido in the News (in the Census?)

According to multiple newspaper articles (Brooklyn Eagle, L.A. Times, and others), enumerators were requested by some households to list dogs as family members. 

In fact, household heads could be rather insistent on the matter! "Rather than argue, the census taker wrote down the dog's name, age and residence," one news item reported.

I don't know whether those names were left as is or deleted during later steps of review and coding. But be aware, as you browse the 1950 U.S. Census after its public release next April, you may just see Fido, Spot, Mittens, or other dogs listed as a member of a household.

Instructions for 1950 US Census Enumerators: Who to Count

In my series on preparing for the release of the 1950 U.S. Census on April 1, 2022, I've been examining the instructions to enumerators who knocked on every door and interviewed the head of every household.

By understanding the nuances of these instructions, I'll be better able to interpret what I see when the scans of the population schedules are made public next year.

Don't count certain people

As shown at top, the enumerators were trained to enumerate only certain people and omit enumeration of other people. This excerpt is from the informative publication The 1950 Census: Procedural Studies, available to view and download from the U.S. Census Bureau site here.

Enumerators were not to count members of the military who were temporarily away from home serving in the Coast Guard or a U.S. Navy vessel, for instance. The reason: These vessels were provided with Census forms to be completed separately.

Similarly, armed-forces personnel who lived in a military facility in the enumerator's assigned district were not to be counted. Again, other plans were in place to enumerate people living on military bases, in a separate count from the residential and institutional buildings in those enumeration districts.

In April of 1950, I had one ancestor in the military. These instructions are a reminder that I won't find him at home, but should look for him on the military base where he was stationed at that time.

How many apartments to count

Another interesting quirk of the 1950 Census was the way the Census Bureau prepared to enumerate residents of apartment buildings in large cities.

The various district offices in major cities (with 100,000+ population) prepared a preliminary list of large apartment complexes. Then these offices wrote to the owner or manager of each building to find out how many apartments were there, how the apartments were numbered, and so forth. As a result, enumerators who were assigned to count residents of those buildings would have advance information about how many apartments they could expect to visit. 

Because the majority of my New York City ancestors lived in big apartment buildings, these instructions would have affected how they were enumerated. I will be very interested to see whether the population schedules indicate the apartment numbers for my parents and for his mother, who had apartments on the same floor in the same big building in the Bronx, New York.

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For more posts about prepping for the release of the 1950 Census, please see my special page here.

Instructions for 1950 US Census Enumerators: The Fine Print

In previous posts, I've highlighted elements of the Enumerator's Reference Manual that was the training guide for how the 1950 U.S. Census was conducted. You can read or download the main manual here.

Supplemental Manual

Today, I'm looking at the supplement to the main manual. You can read and download it here.

This supplemental manual includes detailed instructions for how enumerators should list people in five specific areas, as shown in the excerpt here. 

If you suspect you have ancestors who might be enumerated in one of these five types of areas, it's worth checking the instructions in this brief, 16-page supplement.

Reading the Fine Print

The fine print explains who should be enumerated as living at one of these areas, versus who should be enumerated at their regular residence. For instance, staff members who have living quarters at a hospital, mental institution, or prison would be enumerated there. Staff members who don't regularly live on-site would be enumerated at their usual residence, according to the fine print.

Knowing that enumeration of large institutions might require many hours, enumerators were instructed to determine which inmates might be leaving on April 1, and count them before they depart. Also, when new inmates entered an institution on April 1, enumerators had to determine whether they were enumerated at a different residence--and if not, count them as living at the institution. My guess is that there will be some overlap or omissions or both.

Patient, orphan, prisoner?

The supplemental manual tells enumerators what to label each person who lives in an institution, as shown here. The idea is to show the relationship of each person to the institution.

"Inmate" is only to be used if the other descriptions aren't descriptive enough.

Glance at the supplement if you think an ancestor might be enumerated in one of the five special areas, because the instructions will help you interpret what you see in the 1950 Census.

PS: For more about preparing for the 1950 US Census release in 2022, please see my special page here.

My 1950 U.S. Census Release To-Do List: Ready to Browse Adjacent EDs

Looking ahead to the release of the 1950 Census on April 1, 2022, I'm thinking about the residential situation of my ancestors. 

Own or rent?

A few city dwellers could afford to buy, and they also had a telephone. That means I should be able to easily find their address (and then their Enumeration District), and be ready to browse images in that part of the 1950 population schedule.

However, a good number of my big-city ancestors changed addresses every few years as they moved from one rented apartment to another. Family stories told of convincing new landlords to allow a rent-free month in exchange for a new lease, or a fresh coat of paint in exchange for renewing a lease. 

Usually, new addresses were only a few city blocks away. In Census terminology, that might be the same or an adjacent Enumeration District.

City blocks and ancestor proximity

Take the case of my great uncle Morris Mahler (1888-1958). The last definite address I have for him is 739 East 220th Street in the Bronx, New York, listed on his 1942 WWII draft card. This is shown on the map at top. 

It's a private home, but I don't know whether Morris and his wife Carrie Etschel Mahler (1885-1962) owned or rented. I'm going to check phone and city directories in search of a more recent address. 

This address is only a few blocks away from the apartments of his sister, Henrietta Mahler Burk (1881-1954) and three of her grown children (including my Dad). Very possibly, if Morris was a renter, he would continue to rent not far from the rest of the family.

Key Tool: ED Finder

I previously used the convenient Unified Census ED Finder (thank you, Steve Morse and Joel Weintraub) to locate the ED for my Dad's big apartment building (3-1634). Using the same powerful tool, I located the ED for Morris Mahler's home address on 220th Street (3-1616).

I also noted the four streets that form the boundary around Morris's city block (see the ovals on the map). I can use them, with the Unified Census ED Finder, to identify adjacent EDs in case Morris did move before April 1, 1950.

I see a lot of clicking and browsing in my future when the Census is released next year!

My 1950 U.S. Census Release To-Do List: May 1 = Moving Day

This year, I'm taking steps to find a street address for each key ancestor enumerated in the 1950 U.S. Census. I want to be ready to find them when the unindexed Census records are made public in 2022.

Even when I do find these ancestors in the Census (browsing images in the Enumeration District where each lives), I have to remember that within a month, some city-dwellers could be living elsewhere.

The Tradition of Moving Day

In the Big Apple, May 1 was when all rental leases expired. The same was true in Chicago for many years, and other big cities as well.

Families that lived in apartments spent the weeks before May 1 talking with new landlords who might be willing to negotiate rents or offer another incentive to move. Renters also signed contracts to have moving companies lug furniture to the new place on Moving Day.

Moving Day is unlikely to change where I look for my urban ancestors in the 1950 Census, since they were probably counted in the early days and weeks of enumeration. But it does remind me that the 1950 Census address might be only one in a long line of address changes for each ancestor.

Look for an address after May 1949

My recently married parents (Harold Burk and Daisy Schwartz) were in their second New York City apartment by the time of the 1950 Census. Their parents and other relatives, however, weren't necessarily living in the same apartment in April of 1950 as they were in April of 1949.

Similarly, in the Chicago branch of my family, many were renters. From one Census to another, I noticed that many of these ancestors changed apartments--and very likely they moved more than once in the decade between each Census Day.

So as I research my New York City and Chicago ancestors who were renters, I'm trying to find addresses after May of 1949. I'm looking at birth records of their post-WWII babies, city directories, phone directories, advertisements, news articles, and social items in the newspaper, among other sources. 

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This is part of my series of blog posts about getting ready for the 1950 Census release, which will occur on April 1, 2022.