1950 census release is a 'genealogy goldmine,' can fill gaps in family trees

[marmar]

(Detroit Free Press) Seventy-two years ago, someone knocked on your ancestor's door and asked them a series of questions. Friday, all of that information will be at your fingertips.

So break out the family tree and prepare to go digging.

All of the 1950 census will be released Friday after a mandatory wait of 72 years.

Some data from the 1950 census is already available, just like we have data from every census before and since, but those are just statistics.

Friday's data release includes free digitized access to specific individual information, said Margo Anderson, historian and census expert. ...............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2022/04/01/1950-census-release-date-ancestry-genealogy/7231658001/

[seaglass]

1. This is awesome just hoping they can somehow change the law so we don't have to wait 10

more years for 1960. I might be too old to be interested, or could be dead.

In any case it is kind of cool that my childhood neighborhood was not even built in 1950. I did find the original owners of the house my husband and I bought in 1989.

Lots more searching to be done, it's a bit more work since it's not indexed yet and you need to know/find the Enumeration District.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Lots of genealogy resources, you don't always needs an ancestry subscription

My public libraries have ancestry and others for free.

As someone who was given a lot of family lore, contact with relatives, and a few key names, I'm back to 1850 on all my ancestors, some to 1750s, 1560s, 1210s, and 700s! Once you get back a ways, because populations historically were smaller, you just hook onto what previous generations of genealogy enthusiasts recorded. And it is out there!

There are ship's manifests, Ellis Island and Castle Garden in NYC, ports of entry, border crossings, vital records (births, deaths, marriages, divorces, gov't appications). You don't have to spend much, though I will tell you, in 1998 getting a Social Security app from the government was $3. Last I checked it's around $30. So inflation, inflation.

Be prepared for many, many variations in spellings!!! Poor handwriting, transcription to typewriters and computers, interface of immigrants with civil servants who speak quite another language all make for bizarre records. Could even be phonetic, where 'c' or 'ch' becomes a hard "K", 's' becomes 'sh', etc.

[Mariana]

3. "... you just hook onto what previous generations of genealogy enthusiasts recorded."

You still have to verify their work, because those old genealogies often contain loads of errors.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. yes, but so do modern ones as people take liberty with their ideas and Big Data suggestions

But there are also professional even certified genealogists from past and present. And old records, say from 150 years ago are re-examined by modern researchers. Sometimes genealogies are published. That being said, there are assumptions that have been made, so you are correct, verification is important. Trouble is, the further back the less new info to help verify.

[Mariana]

5. What I've seen is the errors just get copied over and over and over.

One example, there's a big error in the published genealogy of one branch of my family. Every single family tree I've seen online has apparently copied directly from that book and contains that same error. There are zero exceptions to my knowledge. The correct information is in my ancestor's probate file from 1768, and it's also in his second wife's probate file from 1825, both of which are available online (but not indexed, so it takes some effort to find them).