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. 

Local Knowledge, Part 3: Free Big Apple Directories

Easy access to free New York City phone books via stevemorse.org

Knowing that May 1 of every year was Moving Day in New York City helped me understand the timing of moves for siblings of my paternal grandfather, Isaac Burk (1882-1943). That was Part 1 of my series on local knowledge of Big Apple genealogy resources.

In Part 2 of my series, I used free NYC Municipal Archives tax records to find clear b/w photos of the buildings where ancestors lived in 1940.

Now for Part 3. I wanted to look up my grandpa's New York-based siblings in 1940s phone directories, relying on local knowledge for free access.

New York Public Library's Virtual Resources

The New York Public Library is a fabulous source of genealogical resources, not only for researching New York ancestors but well beyond. Many of its resources have been digitized and posted online, available for free without a library card on a 24/7 basis.

The library's digital collection includes New York City directories, which it has been scanning and posting in recent years. This makes valuable genealogical info widely available to anyone, anywhere, who wants to search for a person or a business in the Big Apple, going back as far as 1786. These directories also feature interesting advertising and street maps of the time (context!).

Actually, the library's virtual collection includes both city directories (pre-telephone era) and phone directories--the latter for the five boroughs (Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island).

Not all borough directories are posted and not all years are available, but this an excellent source to tap if your ancestors lived or worked in New York City.

Steve Morse's Super-Easy Search 

My favorite way to search 1940 NYC phone directories for free is through Steve Morse's One-Step access to the books, borough by borough (snippet at top shows a sample from my research).

If you use this one-step access, select a borough on the drop down menu at top left of the search screen. Then click the arrows to progress through pages, or do a name search, or skip to the proper alphabetical page for the name you want.

The snippet shows my search for grandpa Isaac's brother Max Birk, who lived in Brooklyn in 1940. I specified "Brooklyn" as the borough and typed in "Birk" as the name. Steve Morse's super-easy search tool brought me to the page showing Max Birk at 602 Avenue T in Brooklyn, NY. This is the correct address for that time, as it matches Max's 1940 Census location.

By the way, I searched the 1940 Bronx phone book for Paul and Jennie Salkowitz (Jennie was Max and Isaac's sister). They weren't listed. Why? The light bulb went on: According to the 1940 U.S. Census, Jennie and her husband were boarders in somebody else's apartment. No way to have a phone of their own! They moved shortly afterward (on Moving Day, May 1, I'm willing to wager) and had a phone number in later directories.

Internet Archive: Browse Page by Page

There's a third way of accessing some NYC phone directories for free: via Internet Archive. The collection here is more limited. Happily, I did find a 1941 Brooklyn, NY phone directory for free.

Shown here is Max Birk's entry in this Brooklyn phone book, located by browsing page by page. Note the directory's specific date: August, 1941. That's a clue to check the dates on your sources, especially fast-changing phone directories in fast-growing cities like New York. More about dates in Part 4 of my series.