Only 90 Days Until the 1950 US Census is released.

Question

Get ready, April 1st 2022 is the release date.  However it may take a few weeks to a few months before the online search sites like familysearch or Ancestry have them available to actively search.  In 2012, FamilySearch began the project to index the 1940 United States census in hopes of indexing the entire census in 6 months. With over 163,000 volunteers and several genealogical organizations contributing their time and efforts, the census was indexed in just 4 months except for Puerto Rico!  Hopefully, advancements in technology since then will make this shorter.

Of important note, the 1950 US Census was the first to include Americans living abroad.

Answer 1

I remember participating in the 1940 Census indexing. I doubt much will have changed in the technology involved. The process is somewhat slow and painstaking, but for good reason. Handwriting on some of the Census entries is atrocious and sometimes illegible. Best guesses are made by an initial indexer, and if you get a series of pages that are clear, the process goes quickly. If you get one that is very sloppy, the process crawls. Then a second more trusted indexer reviews all the work, and if there are discrepancies, then those all have to be cleared up before the site will publish the findings. So other than "hopefully" the number of volunteers who help index the source pages, I doubt much will have changed.

But on the other hand, the source pages without the index should be available on or around April 1, so from there it's a matter of self-indexing or manual hunting to find the data you're looking for.

Comments

Hopefully Scott, OCR tech has improved in the intervening years to give a boost to the project and possibly reducing the need for as much human intervention thus speeding up the process.

Even then there will still be a need for clean up with a human eye for detail.  Not having seen an image of a completed page from that Census, a lot will be dependent on whether the enumerators could still record using cursive script or block print.  OCR is still not a real fan of cursive script, but getting better.

The real fun will be the 1960 Census where the forms were mailed to and filled out by the residents of each household.  Can't wait to see the handwriting on that one.  Of course seeing that Census is dependent on whether Alexa becomes sentient in the next ten years and decides to go all Terminator on us. LOL

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IIRC, it took volunteers only one long weekend to complete the indexing of the 1940 census.

Right now I am more concerned about the missing 1900 census on Family Search.

Answer 2

This is going to help genealogy in so many ways of those we loved and lost. I hope to find more research about my uncles, aunts and grandfathers.

 I think they should release the census reports sooner who came up with the "72-Year Rule" 

Comments

Here's one explanation for the 72 year rule:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2012/04/09/the-72-year-rule-governs-release-of-census-records/

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It’s a good explanation but needs updating. 1978 data for their reasons don’t line up with our day and age. Interesting topic of discussion. Maybe it’s best to keep it at 72 years  keeps us in suspense! 

Answer 3

I am eagerly awaiting the 1950 Census!  It’ll have my mom, grandparents, and her sister, my dad and his sister, as well as many others!

I haven’t looked up what kind of info was gathered on that Census, so it’ll be interesting.

Getting a new Census is better than Christmas!

Comments

Hi Lynnette, I can't wait either.  Here is the list of questions that were on the 1950 Census at the US Census Bureau website.

The 1950 census population questionnaire

And yes Lynnette, there is a Santa Claus. 

Answer 4

I am so excited waiting for this census, I will be in it, or should be.  I really am interested in where I was living at the time and there is no one here now that is old enough to give me that information.  During my preschool years we moved around a lot and my family was in Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama at different times.  Alabama may have been before my birth but I remember Tennessee and Georgia just not the time periods we were there.  April can not come soon enough for me.