On April 1, 2022 was a great day! This is when the 1950 U.S. Federal Census was released to the public.
Many U.S. based family historians start researching their family by looking at the U.S. Census collection. The U.S. Census begins in 1790 and has been collected every 10 years since then, making it a genealogical gold mine. Since 1978, the U.S. Government follows the “72-Year Rule” to make the census records available to the general public.
History of the 72-Year Rule
The U.S. government will not release personally identifiable information about an individual to any other individual or agency until 72 years after it was collected for the decennial census. This “72-Year Rule” (92 Stat. 915; Public Law 95-416; October 5, 1978) restricts access to decennial census records to all but the individual named on the record or their legal heir.
Census.gov, https://www.census.gov/history/www/genealogy/decennial_census_records/the_72_year_rule_1.html
There isn’t a concise history as to why the U.S. releases the Federal Censuses 72 years after its release, but there has been some research into determining why. Click below to read some of the articles.
- Census Records: The 72-Year Rule by that National Archives
- The “72-Year Rule” provided by the U.S. Census Bureau
- The U.S. census’s 72-year confidentiality rule has a strange history by Hansi Lo Wang (www.npr.org)
What’s in the 1950 U.S. Census
The 1950 census encompassed the continental United States, the territories of Alaska and Hawaii, American Samoa, the Canal Zone, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands of the United States, and some of the smaller island territories.
1950 Census Overview, https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/overview/1950.html
Each census asks different questions which were important at that time, and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) wrote a post about what the differences are.
How to Access
NARA offers free access to the 1950 U.S. Census and researchers can also download the full dataset in bulk on their website.
NARA is asking for the public’s help to index the census. The initial name index will use “Amazon Web Services’ artificial intelligence/optical character recognition (AI/OCR) Textract tool to extract the handwritten names from the digitized 1950 Census population schedules. Because the initial name index is built on … OCR technology, it will not be 100-percent accurate. The National Archives is asking for your help in submitting name updates.” (https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1950)
Additionally, many of the major genealogy websites will offer access to the 1950 Census.
*Please note, some services may charge for access to the indexed records.
- Ancestry: 1950 U.S. Census
- Family Search: 1950 United States Census
- My Heritage: 1950 Census Release is Coming Up Soon!
For more information on learning about the indexing process for the 1950 Census, FamilySearch blog provided this article, which explains the joint collaboration between NARA, Ancestry and FamilySearch.