Page Text: The 1950 U.S. Census: Discover Your Family History from 1950
February 22, 2022
11 min read
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The 1950 U.S. Census can provide an intriguing window into the lives of your ancestors during the very middle of the 20th century. Taken in April of 1950, this census provides rich details on the lives of the 150 million Americans living in the United States and its territories during this fascinating period.
Who knows what you might discover about your own ancestors in the 1950 U.S. Census?
Search the 1950 Census for Free on MyHeritage!
The 1950 Census was officially available to the public starting on April 1, 2022 — exactly 72 years after the enumeration began. MyHeritage was the first commercial company to offer all of the 1950 census images as a collection . On April 7th, MyHeritage published the first installment of the 1950 United States Census Index collection, which includes the indexed records and their accompanying images. So far the states and territories that are included are Wyoming, Delaware, Vermont, and American Samoa. Additional releases are expected in the weeks ahead until the index is complete. All of the records are available to search, view, and add to your family tree on MyHeritage for free!
Search the 1950 U.S. census records on MyHeritage
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Read more about the 1950 Census release in our blog post, The 1950 U.S. Census is coming to MyHeritage! Free!
Searching the 1950 Census on MyHeritage
Though census records are available to the public on the National Archives website, searching on MyHeritage offers invaluable additional benefits:
Advanced search capabilities: Using MyHeritage’s search engine, you can search for your ancestors according to any criteria and not just name, home address, or enumeration district. MyHeritage’s sophisticated search algorithms can even identify nicknames and name variations from other languages.
Easily flip between records within the family: MyHeritage allows you to easily flip between census records of individuals in the same family group. Family members are listed on the record page, and you can click their names to go to their records.
Explore related records: When you are viewing records on MyHeritage, you’ll see additional historical records that mention the person you are researching. Our database includes more than 16 billion records and is constantly growing.
Receive automatic Record Matches: When you build a family tree on MyHeritage, you won’t even need to search actively. MyHeritage finds historical records that mention the people in your family tree and delivers them straight to your inbox.
Extract new information straight to your family tree: Extracting information from historical records and placing it on your online family tree is as simple as a few clicks on MyHeritage.
What can the 1950s Census show us about our ancestors?
The 1950 Census will reveal important details about our ancestors’ lives, for example:
Their place of residence
The people they were living with
Their occupations
Their birthplaces
Their immigration statuses
Reviewing these details can help you discover new details about your ancestors, or confirm what you already know.
The 1950 Census covered a larger geographic area than any census that came before, and it was also the first to include Americans living abroad. This means you just might come across some ancestors who didn’t show up in previous censuses.
We’ll elaborate on the exact information collected on the census below.
What changed from the 1940 Census to the 1950 Census?
The decade that passed between 1940 and 1950 was one of the most eventful in human history. World War II had only just started when the 1940 Census was completed. The war ended in 1945, and by 1950, the post-war baby boom was well underway. Scientific and technological discoveries were moving forward at lightning speed, from the hereditary properties of DNA to the first successful digital computer.
The population of the United States grew 14.5% from 132,164,569 to 151,325,798 — almost double the growth rate from the previous decade. This population boom made the task of enumeration particularly daunting. The 1950 Census was the last U.S. census to be done in person — by 1960, the census was taken by mail-in questionnaires. It was no small feat to send out enumerators to knock on every door in the United States with more than 150 million residents!
Accordingly, some changes were made to ensure that the outcome was as accurate and complete as possible. These measures included:
Better training and organization for enumerators
Detailed maps of enumeration districts
Special infant cards for babies born between January and March 1950, since young infants were easily missed
A planned special enumeration of “transients” took place on April 11 for hotels, tourist courts, etc.
“Missed Person” forms were published in newspapers so people who thought they were missed could fill out a form and mail it to the district supervisors
A post-enumeration survey
How were people counted in the 1950 Census?
The primary goal of the census is to understand how many people were living in the United States at the time. Therefore, the methodology of enumeration was based around the place of residence. Enumerators were each assigned a specific district where they were to go door to door, ask the residents the questions on the form, and fill out the information. This is how the vast majority of people were counted on the census.
To avoid duplicate records, enumerators did not count people who were visiting a household temporarily, domestic workers who slept in a different living space, people who ate regularly at the household but slept elsewhere, household members who were inmates in prisons or other institutions, and other people who were to be counted in their current places of residence.
Enumeration of “transients,” or people living in temporary housing, was always a challenge. In 1950, as mentioned above, a particular date was set for enumeration of transients: the enumerators visited hotels, hostels, YMCAs, campsites, and other places where people might have been living temporarily, and asked people living in those places to fill out their own census form. They were asked to fill out their own forms (Individual Census Report form or ICR) rather than answer the questions out loud out of concern for their privacy in these public spaces.
To ensure that no one was missed, enumerators would also check the registers of these places and add any information they were not able to get first-hand. If you see the abbreviation REG next to your ancestor’s name in the 1950 Census, that means this information was collected from the register and not from the person.
As mentioned above, the 1950 Census was also the first to count Americans living abroad. These Americans included:
Members of the armed forces
Crew members of vessels at sea
Employees of the U.S. government and their families living abroad
It’s important to note that information on U.S. citizens abroad was collected from family members or even neighbors still living in the U.S., so it may not be as reliable as census data that was collected directly from the person.
Information included in the 1950 Census
In each census during the 100 years between 1850 and 1950, the same 6 basic facts about each person were established:
Name