1950 Census

[webwiz]

Does anyone know when the 1950 US census will be released (indexed) on FamilySearch?

 

[peter]

Does anyone know when the 1950 US census will be released (indexed) on FamilySearch?

Ancestry are expecting the transcription to be finished by the summer - they're not being more precise than that, but they're doing a state at a time so you might be lucky.

The NARA have used OCR to transcribe the names with differing degrees of success - I managed to find some of my relatives who have German surnames and were in the same area as they had been in 1940. But it's rather hit-and-miss.

 

[jorghes]

As far as I know (from the updates I kept getting) it's basically a simultaneous release - they're transcribing it and releasing it immediately on Ancestry.

You can find more information on Ancestry's 1950 Census page.

 

[JimP]

The NARA have used OCR to transcribe the names with differing degrees of success - I managed to find some of my relatives who have German surnames and were in the same area as they had been in 1940. But it's rather hit-and-miss.

The accuracy of the NARA OCR transcriptions depends very much on the handwriting of the enumerator. My first try was for my great-grandfather. No problem, as the enumerator used block capitals. The OCR did, however, miss the middle initial of his housekeeper, because it ran over into the next box on the form. My great-aunt and her family were on the same page, also correctly transcribed.

My next search was for my grandparents and father (he was 16 on census day). No luck searching by last name, nor with variant spellings. Since I knew where they were living at the time, I zeroed in on the ED, and tried searching my father's first name, Wayne (less common than my grandfather William). I had 3 hits, and the entry above it was for "Ioris", which I recognized as a mistranscription of my grandmother Doris. Out of 20-some entries on the page, only one other besides my father's was correctly transcribed, because the OCR program had difficulty with the handwriting (though it was well decipherable to me).

When I have time, I still have to look for my mother's family, as well as extended family on my father's side.

 

[JimP]

One important thing to note on the NARA transcription -- because the enumerators did not repeat the surname for members of a household with the same surname as the head, you can only search by full name for the heads of households.