Research Write Connect Blog

[This article is by Diana Crisman Smith for Research Write Connect]

Have you heard the exciting news? The 1950 U.S. Federal Census will be released on 1 April 2022!

I’ve been waiting for this one to see what all the family that I know were up to at that time (I hadn’t yet made my initial appearance). It is understood that, as with the 1940 census, it is planned to be released UNINDEXED, then crowdsourcing will index it. It was expected that would take a year - but you know how impatient genealogists are: we got together on several platforms and went to work - it was done in 6 months. I expect 1950 will be a similar effort.

Blank 1950 Census Form

In the meantime, however, there will be records out there that we want to see NOW. This will be possible, but that means you need to know where to look. There are some aids in development which will help. But we need to do some homework first.

1. Figure out who was living in 1950 and start trying to put...