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." 

Really Last-Minute News about the 1950 US Census Release

The US National Archives held a very informative webinar on Wednesday, revealing for the first time what the search interface will look like when NARA releases the 1950 US Census on April 1st. 

Search example

Shown above, one of the search screen examples provided by NARA. I added the title to the slide, the thunderbolt (to show the name "John Doe" being searched), and the red boxes (to show two of the results that match the search). 

We can search by surname only, by given name only, or by both. We can add a location (state, county, city, and/or Enumeration District number) to narrow the search. 

We can view the results as a list or in a grid...we can view more than 25 results on one screen...we can click on the "Population Schedules" button to view that ED's pages for a result that looks promising. 

You can watch the NARA video here -- and don't miss the comments in the chat, where we learned two absolutely key details.

Name index not available for bulk download!

NARA will not make its basic name index available for bulk download along with the population schedules. As a result, Family Search, Ancestry, My Heritage, and other genealogy groups that download the entire 1950 Census will not have access to NARA's name index as the foundation for creating their own. 

On April 1, all of these sites will have the 1950 US Census available for browsing. However, they will have NO index for some time (weeks? months?). 

Bottom line: If you want to try a search instead of browsing for ancestors, NARA's site will be the only game in town for now.

Improve the index by adding surnames!

NARA will allow members of the public to improve the index in various ways. Of course, we can correct names that are not spelled correctly. But we can also add surnames to household members who only had a dash, because their surnames are the same as the head of household.

Here's why that is a big help. The automated indexing transcribed each line as it appeared. Let's say one household, a mother and two children, looks like this:

Smith, Mary A. 

_____, John

_____, Tessie

Neither John nor Tessie will have a surname transcribed, because their surname is the same as the head of household and therefore the enumerator was told to only put a dash. The technology used for indexing doesn't read the dash, only the names "John" and "Tessie."

Now NARA will allow members of the public to add the surname to those two children. This will help anyone looking for John Smith and Tessie Smith to find them by their surname AND given name. Otherwise, we'll need to use NARA's recommended strategy of searching for head of household to find Mary A. Smith and then look in her household for the children. 

My plan for April 1st and beyond

My approach on day 1 will be to search NARA first by name/location. Then I'll locate the ED and browse the images for people who don't turn up in my name search results. (NOTE: NARA says it is ready for a surge and doesn't expect the 1950 Census site will crash. Fingers crossed!)

I can browse images on NARA or on any of the big genealogy sites, but I can search only on NARA in the beginning.

I've also signed up with Ancestry.com to be notified when it has completed indexing states in which my ancestors lived. Take a look at the Ancestry page for more info here. 

Plus I'll be keeping an eye on MyHeritage's 1950 US Census plans as they develop. The company just announced its Census Helper tool, which will identify ancestors on your family tree that are likely to be included in the 1950 US Census. 

Want to help index this Census? FamilySearch is inviting volunteers to join the project and speed the process along. Thousands have already signed up. Read more here.

The Steiner Sisters in the 1950 US Census

Isn't this a delightful tea party, staged for a studio photo about 1903? 

Hubby's maternal grandma is pouring the tea--Floyda Steiner McClure, second from the left. Floyda was the baby of the family, and all the sisters were fond of her.

I used MyHeritage to enhance and colorize this tea party photo, which now looks quite eye-catching. Then I used MyHeritage's new LiveStory feature to pretend that one of the sisters was telling a brief story about the family (click here to view). I recognize that not everyone is crazy about these technologies, but I like experimenting and seeing how they work--while retaining the original photo intact, not colorized or enhanced in any way. 

Sorry to say, only two of these Steiner sisters will be found in the 1950 US Census. Both Etta Blanche Steiner Rhuark and Carrie Steiner Traxler will be in Enumeration District 88-27, because they lived around the corner from each other in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. They were my husband's doting great aunts and I really want to show him their names in the Census on Friday.

This is my "sisters" post for Amy Johnson Crow's #52Ancestors genealogy challenge.

1950 US Census "Sample of Sample" Questions

Just days until the 1950 US Census is released and I'm more than ready to dive in and find my ancestors on April 1st. 

It would be a stroke of luck to have an ancestor selected as part of the "sample" to answer additional, detailed questions about 1949 residence, 1949 income, parents' birthplaces, school attendance, and military service.

Six out of 30 answered sample questions

This sample consisted of 6 people out of the 30 enumerated on every page of the Census. Truly a treasure trove of family history if one of my ancestors is included.

From those who answered the sample questions, one was asked a few "sample of sample" questions. As shown above in an excerpt from the US National Archives page listing all the Census questions for 1950, these questions were for people aged 14 and up.

More details about marriage and children

If one of my ancestors is listed on a line selected for the "sample of sample" questions, the answers will illuminate his or her marital history. Was the person married more than once? How many years since marital status changed? Wonderful genealogical clues for me to follow up and search for marriage or divorce documents!

If I'm really lucky, that person will be one of my women ancestors. Why? Because the final question asks how many children this woman has ever borne.** This will give me hints about whether I've missed an infant death, for instance, and improve my family tree's accuracy for the sake of future generations and future researchers.

1910 vs 1950 question about children

The last time this kind of question was asked was in the 1910 US Census (and before that, the 1900 Census). In 1910, the enumerator first asked how many children the woman ever had borne, and then asked how many were still alive. That's how I knew to look for children who died young or in between Census years. 

Did my paternal grandma Henrietta Mahler Burk (1881-1954) have any children who died young? In 1910, she told the Census she had 2 children and both were alive. Now when the 1950 Census is released, if this ancestor was asked the "sample of sample" questions, I hope to learn whether there were other children I never knew about. 

My great-grandma Tillie Jacobs Mahler (185?-1952), reported 9 children in all and 7 alive in 1900, then 10 children in all and 7 alive in 1910. What about in the 1950 Census? 

My maternal grandma Henrietta Farkas Schwartz (1886-1964) got married and had her children between 1910 and 1920 and never answered this question before the 1950 Census. I don't expect any surprises, but who knows--let's see if she was asked the "sample of sample" questions.

**Note the assumption built into this final "sample of sample" question: If a woman said she was never married when answering question #12 on the Population Schedule, she would not be asked question #38. On the other hand, if she answered that she was married, separated, divorced, or widowed, she would be asked this question if she was recorded on the line chosen for "sample of sample" questions. This assumption didn't apply to the 1910 or 1900 question, apparently.

To see all of my 1950 US Census posts, please go to my summary page here.

Seeing Double in Our Family Trees

Twins definitely run in my Farkas family tree: I have a twin sister and we're daughters of a twin. Above, my mom and her sis (the Schwartz twins) about 1920ish. In addition, the Farkas family included twin boys, "Woody" and "Sandy," my second cousins.

Twins also appear in my paternal line. Among my Dad's 1st cousins on the Mahler side were Harvey Smith (1916-1996) and his twin brother Jules Smith (1916-1996). They died within five months of each other and are buried near one another in Florida. 

My husband's family tree has twins, as well. Born on the eve of New Year's Eve in 1854, twin sisters Amanda "Callie" McClure (1854-1887) and Anna "Addie" McClure (1854-1928) were great-great aunts of my husband. 

Interestingly, these McClure ladies had cousins who were fraternal twins: Jesse McClure (1875-1952) and Bessie McClure (1875-1959), born on January 31, 1875. This brother and sister were 1c2r of my husband.

"Joined together" -- in this post, about twins together -- is the #52Ancestors prompt for week 12 of Amy Johnson Crow's genealogy challenge.

Did You See These These RootsTech Sessions?

 
Hundreds and hundreds of RootsTech presentations from 2022 and 2021 are still available to view, for free, at RootsTech.org.

There were many excellent sessions, and I still have dozens more to view, waiting on my playlist. 

Here are five sessions that provided food for thought and encouraged me to dig deeper into genealogy and family-history questions. If you haven't seen them, please consider adding them to your playlist!

• Dealing with ethical dilemmas in an online world. So many ethical questions arise in today's world of genealogy, and this session looks at a few very timely concerns (DNA, grave memorials, and terms of service, to name just three). A conversation worth watching.
• When Harry met Dotty. A relatively brief but fascinating and informative case study of how Nick David Barratt used DNA to break down a key brick wall. Maps are part of the story too. A good case study like this can be really helpful!
• Genealogy YouTubers. I've already blogged about this terrific panel discussion. What did I love? The candid conversation about the challenges and opportunities of using YouTube to connect with an audience of family historians. Interesting and fun.
• What to do when there's nothing to do. Speaker Renate Yarborough Sanders reminds us of the many things we can do when we choose to take a break from intense research and return with fresh eyes. Thoughtful and encouraging!
• Family Folklore: Fact or Fiction? Anyone who's heard a family legend will get something out of watching Virginia M. Pratt's talk, featuring interesting case studies of trying to find the truth and suggestions for how to discuss family stories with relatives. 

1950 US Census Prep: Check for Special EDs on the Maps

 

If you, like me, suspect some ancestors were in a hospital, hotel, or another facility on April 1, 1950, let me suggest something to try as you prep for the release of that year's Census.** 

Check the Enumeration District maps for the county, town, or city where that institution was located. You might be lucky and find a listing of special EDs at the top, bottom, or elsewhere on the map where those buildings are shown.

Above, a partial listing of special EDs from an ED map of one section of the Bronx, New York, showing convents, an orphanage, a reformatory, a monastery, hospitals, schools for the deaf, even a large apartment house. This is an unusually long list--but it's not unusual to find special EDs marked on an ED map. Take a look!

Knowing the specific ED for the institution or facility gives you a head start on April 1, when the Census is made public. You'll be able to either browse the handwritten Census sheets for that one ED or use NARA's initial index to search by name and ED. 

I'm not 100% sure where all of my ancestors will be, or which will be away from home. One ancestor lived for years in a residential hotel and that's where I'll look first in the 1950 US Census. Another died weeks after the Census was taken so she might actually be in a nearby hospital, not at home. In each case, having the ED number for the facility can help me find those ancestors more quickly before full indexing.

The big genealogy sites are gearing up to the 1950 US Census fully indexed sooner rather than later. FamilySearch.org has an update page where you can learn more about the release and about indexing. If you want to help FamilySearch index the Census, I recommend watching Devon Lee's Family History Fanatics video about indexing. 

IMHO, since indexing can't be done until April 1st, there is still time to prep by finding EDs and being ready to look for top priority ancestors when the Census is made public!

**To see how to turn a street address into an Enumeration District, I have a case study here. To see how to use Enumeration maps and descriptions, see my case study here.

For even more posts and links related to the 1950 US Census release, please see my summary page here.