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.

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 Prep: Using ED Maps and Descriptions

A good number of my ancestors lived in New York City--many in the Bronx, some in Queens, some in Brooklyn, a few in Manhattan, but none in Staten Island. 

As I get ready to find them in the 1950 US Census when the records are released in April, I'm finding I have to dig even deeper to determine the specific Enumeration District for a few of these Big Apple residents. This holds true for other big cities, by the way, as I've discovered searching for Cleveland ancestors.

Details matter

Here's a mini case study featuring ED maps and ED descriptions. My cousins lived at 3706 72d Street in Queens, New York. But studying the map, I see that the borough of Queens also has 72d Avenue, 72d Avenue Ext, 72d Crescent, 72d Drive, 72d Lane, 72d Place, and 72d Road. 

So my first step was to be sure I entered the correct street name when using the nifty Unified Census ED Finder by Steve Morse and Joel Weintraub. 

With only the street name/number, there were too many potential Enumeration Districts for me to browse. As the site directs, I next looked at the Google map and entered a cross street (Broadway) and a back street (37th Avenue) for the block where these cousins lived. 

These two additional details narrowed the number of EDs to three. I couldn't enter a fourth cross or back street, because my cousins lived on a triangular city block. 

Go to the NARA map

My next step was to look at the National Archives map for the three EDs that were around the address. The Steve Morse site has an easy one-step process to go to the maps. Be sure you set the year to 1950. 

Once I located the map for this section of Queens, I enlarged it to read the street names. I found my cousins' address was at a location numbered as block 12 on the NARA ED map (at top). 

The little white star on image above is where my cousins lived in 1950. But the orange lines delineating the districts didn't show me precisely which ED my cousin lived in. What now?

Read the NARA map description

To further narrow the number of EDs, I clicked on the link to read the transcription of each district in turn. The description for 41-598 wasn't as close to the address as the descriptions for 41-608 and 41-880, shown here:

It wasn't enough to glance at the boundary descriptions, because 72d Street, 37th Avenue, and Broadway are listed on both ED 41-608 and ED 41-880.

I looked more closely at the specific blocks included within each ED. Remember, the NARA map at top shows that the address is on block 12.

Block 12 is described as being within ED 41-608. So on April 1st, I'll be looking for my cousins in this single ED!

For more about the 1950 US Census release, see my summary page here. To learn more about the US National Archives ED maps and other maps of interest to genealogists, see 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 Census: Infant Card Innovation

Did you know about the 1950 Census Infant Cards?

When the 1950 US Census is released in April, 2022, we will NOT be able to see a new innovation introduced that year: Infant Cards.**

Here's the Census Bureau's explanation: "An infant card had to be completed for each baby born after January 1, 1950 (since experience had shown that babies are easily missed)."

The idea was to have enumerators ask specifically about any baby born in January, February, or March of 1950. This is in addition to enumerating the baby by name in the regular population schedule page. Below is a sample Infant Card.

Sample Infant Card from 1950 Census

Why are Infant Cards so valuable? Let me count the ways!

• When listing the baby's name, enumerators were told to "check the spelling with the informant." Well, that alone is an improvement over the days when enumerators simply wrote down whatever they thought they heard!
• The card asks whether father is enumerated in the same household as the infant--and if yes, name, age, occupation and industry of father. If no father in the household, no father info will be written on the Infant Card. A good clue to be followed up.
• Exact date of birth of this baby. I'll be sending for birth certs!
• Name of hospital, place of birth (the assumption is clearly that the infant will not be a home birth).
• Maiden name of mother. Yippeeeee! 
• Age of mother, education of mother (meaning highest grade finished).

Question #17 is very important for spotting gaps in families: It asks about the order of birth for this infant. Is this the 1st, 2d, 3d, etc. child the mother has ever borne?

In this question, the enumerator was to count all live births, including children who died.

Being a twin, I paid attention to the fine print here: If the Infant Card listed a twin, the birth order was to be recorded for each one separately. Instructions say not to call both twins "1st child" of the mother.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, according to the U.S. National Archives, infant cards will not be released when the 1950 population schedule is released in 2022. The National Archives does not have the cards--in fact, the cards don't seem to exist at this point.

For links to the rest of my #1950Census series, please check the summary page here.