Preparing for the release of the 1950 census records
I’m excited for 1950 because of the census! Some people get excited when a new cell phone drops but genealogists get excited when new records become available! Imagine the family historians cutting a rug when the National Archives drops the 1950 census on April 1st? It will be similar to New Year’s Eve! This census is so important to genealogists for several reasons:
- This is the census that most of our parents show up on for the first time.
- We continue to follow the migration of our relatives from the South to the North and out to the West.
- Alaska and Hawaii did not become states until 1959; however, they were included in census records as well as other U.S. territories.
- Military personnel living on their installations and college students living at their college were enumerated at their respective locations.
What you need to know
Here are some things that you need to be aware of with this census:
- Enumerators microfilmed only the front side of the 1950 census. Unfortunately, the originals were destroyed. Bah humbug!
- There were several versions of the 1950 Census. The P1 (Basic Census form) was what the enumerators (census takers) used when they went door-to-door; however, there were 17 other forms that enumerators used. Wow!
- The 1950 census had fewer lines (30 lines) compared to the 1940 census (40 lines). They included more room for enumerators to take notes or give explanations about information on the record.
- Name searching will be available through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) that will decipher the handwritten records. If you find a mistake in the transcription, submit a correction to help perfect the indexing.
- The relationship status updated compared to the 1940 census. They removed “S” for single and added “N” for “never married.”
- Enumerators asked additional questions based on previously answered questions or their position on the census.
Personally, I’m going to make a list to prep for the 1950 census release. How am I going to do that you ask? That’s a post for another day. Happy Searching!
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