CENSUS SUNDAY ~ The 1950 census featuring Me and my husband

It’s time I began writing about the 1950 census, which was made public this past April 1^st.

This particular census was a big one for some of us baby boomers.  It would be the first census we are enumerated.  

Ron and I we were fortunate to be born during the first 3 months of 1950 because the census enumerated people in the household on April 1, 1950. 

I was not disappointed and found both of us with our parents, on the very first day the census came out.  While it wasn’t yet indexed, we had all learned ways to find our families by using enumeration indexes and other tricks.  It’s all indexed now and can be searched by name.

To access the 1950 census and find your family, you can go to Ancestry, MyHeritage or Family Search

Here is the 1950 census with me as a baby and my parents.

Click on any image to enlarge it

They are living in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan.  Both myself and my parents were born in Detroit, as were many other family members.  No surprise that my blog is called Michigan Family Trails.  My Dad is working as a truck driver for Cartage Company.  They are living at 16814 Winston.  In fact I have a picture of them standing in front of that very house prior to my birth.

Here's a scrapbook page I created using that photo.

Here is the 1950 census with my husband Ron and his parents, Gordon & Dorothy.  They are living in San Diego, California at 4339 35^th St.  Gordon is working as a Field Representative at the Pacific Finance Company.  The census correctly states that Gordon was born in California, Dorothy in New York and Ron right there in San Diego.

Of course I have many more family members who appeared in this census and will write about them from time to time.  Especially our grandparents, aunts and uncles.

There were no surprises in this census record in regards to our families.  

• Have you found yourself in this census?  
• How about family members?  
• Were there any surprises for you?

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2022   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

AT LAST ~ THE RELEASE OF THE 1950 U.S. FEDERAL CENSUS

 

It happened!!  The release of the 1950 census

April 1, 2022

To read about my preparations for this big event click here Are you ready for the 1950 census? 

In addition to creating my list with Legacy, I also used Steve Morse’s website to try to narrow down enumeration districts. Steve Morse & Joel Weintraub Unified 1950 Census ED Finder 

A name index using Artificial Intelligence was released on the National Archives website.  But, how accurate will it be? 

That being said, I wanted to do everything I could to be ready. 

The 1950 census enumerates people who were living at a certain address as of April 1, 1950. This is quite significant to both myself and my husband, Ron.  Why? Because we were both born in March.  If the enumeration was done correctly this will be the first time we appear on a census record. 

I couldn’t wait to find us and our parents! 

All the social media sites were a buzz with anticipation of this release.  Amy Johnson Crow began a countdown at 11:50 pm EST, which would be 8:50 pm here on the west coast. 

I tuned in and waited with everyone else. 

Sure enough at EXACTLY midnight eastern time, the census went live on the National Archives (NARA) website.  

OH BOY!!!!! 

The very first thing I did was put in the location where I would be found, as well as the enumeration district.  I crossed my fingers and hoped. 

I entered Michigan, Detroit, Wayne and enumeration district 85-2559.

PLEASE CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT

I could see that I would have 29 pages to scroll through.  Not too bad and easily doable. 

When I got to page 16………………..WOW!  There they were my parents, Harry & Patricia and their baby daughter, Dianne (written with two n’s instead of one, but that’s ok).

Census image showing me with my parents

I repeated the process with my husband’s place of birth, San Diego, California.  I already had the ED’s saved.  I entered the information and began scrolling through the census images.  This time there were 27 pages.  

There they were with their infant son, Ronald, on page 23 of the image set.

Census image showing Ron with his parents

Here are the ways you can find your family. 

·       Use the Ancestry 1950 census district finder (which worked very well for me) Enter the location/address etc. and it should give you an ED

·       Use Steve Morse’s page as another way to locate the ED

·       Go to the NARA (National Archives website) 1950 Census and read their Tips for Searching the Census and proceed.

·       Use the census images on MyHeritage to search for the records.

·       And last that I know of – use the Family Search website.  I used this one for the first time this morning.  I’m not finding it as easy to use right now.  I need to spend some more time learning how their system works for this census.

I hope everyone is having a good time finding their families in this latest census release.

I have so far located both sets of grandparents, my uncle and my Dad’s ex wife and my two half sisters.  I have a lot more people to try and locate.  Can I find them without use of a name index?  I’m not sure.  I’ve tried entering the names on the NARA site, but so far, have not been successful in locating the exact families.

I’d love to hear your success stories. 

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2022   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

SATURDAY NIGHT GENEALOGY FUN ~ Are you ready for the 1950 census?

 

Randy Seaver, blogger extraordinaire, does a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post each week.  It’s always fun to play along. Here is this week’s post.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music here) is to:

 

1)   The 1950 United States Census will be available to search on 1 April 2022 - less than three weeks away. How have you prepared yourself to search it? Have you found 1950 addresses of your family members and persons of interest? Have you identified the State, County, Town and Enumeration District? Have you made a table of your findings so you can systematically find everyone on your list? What will you do with the information you gather?

2) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post. Be sure to leave a link with your answers in a comment.

I am excited about the release of the 1950 census for a few reasons.  First of all, it’s the first release of a census that  should have both myself and my husband included.  Albeit, only by a few days.

Secondly, who doesn’t want another census in which to find our ancestors?

And finally, what knew information can I learn from the census?

Here’s how I’ve prepared.

I use Legacy Family Tree software.  They have a feature called “Census List.”  This is located in the Search tab.

My created list give me 1854 individuals who may appear on the 1950 census.

WOW!  That’s great. I guess I won’t lack for something to do in the coming weeks.

My primary focus will be myself and my husband, our parents, grandparents and great grandparents.  And, of course siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles.

We will have to depend on the index created by Family Search volunteers. It may take several months for the indexing to be complete.

In the meantime, as with the 1940 census release, 10 years ago, we have other options.

You can use the Steve Morse and Joel Weintraub Enumeration District (ED) Finder.  Here’s a link to their website Enumeration District Maps in One Step

When I entered my primary search focus, which is Detroit, Wayne, Michigan I got the following list of Enumeration Districts. While all those links appear to have the same ED number, when you click on each one, they go to a different map.

Since Detroit is a big city it might be a bit of a search to find the correct ED. However, if you practice by using the 1940 census it may make it easier for you.

However you prepare for this big event, I wish you lots of luck in your searches. 

I’d love to hear what your going to do, either in a comment or on your own blog.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION