This isn’t an April Fool’s joke! The 1950 US Census will be released on April 1, 2022.
Here’s a quick blurb from the National Archives and then some useful links which should cover most everything you need in order to begin searching the census:
“Taken every 10 years since 1790, the United States census provides a snapshot of the nation’s population. Because of a 72-year restriction on access to the records, the most recent census year currently available is 1940.
On April 1, 2022, the 1950 Census will be released, and users will be able to access it for free through a dedicated website. A link to the website will be available here starting on April 1. This population census is the 17th decennial census of the United States. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has digitized and will provide free online access to the 1950 Census population schedules for U.S. states and territories, enumeration district maps, and enumeration district descriptions.
Bulk Download: In addition, researchers will be able to download the full 1950 Census dataset through the Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Registry of Open Data .
How You Can Help
You will be able to search the 1950 Census website by name and location. You will also be able to search by Indian Reservation for form P8 Indian Reservation Schedules.
To develop the initial name index, we are using 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 optical character recognition (OCR) technology, it will not be 100-percent accurate. The National Archives is asking for your help in submitting name updates to the index using a transcription tool that will be available on the 1950 Census website. You can help us improve the accuracy of the name index and make the records more accessible for everyone. More information will be forthcoming.”
Pretty much everything you need to know about the 1950 census release:
https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1950
Tool to find an enumeration district
https://stevemorse.org/census/unified.html
Search for enumeration district maps:
https://catalog.archives.gov/
Chemung County 1950 enumeration district map
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/24066743
We hope you find this useful. Let us know what you think!
