TRYING THE 1950 CENSUS SEARCH ON ANCESTRY TM GENEALOGY - SOME SUCCESS SOME FAILURE

I've been trying the Ancestry TM genealogy databases once a week to see what progress that big database company is making on indexing the 1950 census, which came out on the NARA web site on April first.  (Disclosure:  The title of this blog is not in reference to that site.  Ancestry TM is one of many databases that I use.)

Having found some, but not all of the people I sought to find, I kept trying Ancestry TM to see what, if anything, would come up that I had not found on the NARA web site.  Yesterday I was pleased to have brought up one of the people who I sought, and indeed the surname was spelled incorrectly enough that I might have played games with it a dozen or more different ways in hopes of finding it. So in this case, Ancestry's implied soundex did make a difference.

Interestingly, however,  the person's son,  living independently, who I did find on a NARA exploration, did not come up on Ancestry, though I spelled that surname the same way as it had come up on NARA. And he was living in the same town, not far away. 

A further surprise was that a relative of mine was counted TWICE, at two different locations in the same small town, listed as a 'lodger.'  In one it says she is 24, in the other that she is 30.  The 24 is closer to the mark, making me think that the family where she is listed as 30 years old might have talked to the census taker rather than the census taker talking to her.  Had she been in the process of moving?  Neither family is related to her, so ???

Ancestry TM is suggesting that you send them your e-mail address in order to be informed about the 1950 census.  I simply looked at the numbers and saw that about one and a half million had been indexed. About 151 million people were counted that  1950 census and no doubt about it, there must be many people working on it. So, I think I must have just been lucky enough to have been searching for a surname that comes up within the count.

Another surprise was learning that a person who I knew to have been divorced three times had two more children with the third, brief, husband. They were born after the 1940, and I know the husband was living in a boarding house that year.  I do wonder what the arrangement was.  This woman had a very hard life.  Her age is a little off on the 1950, and it says she was born in the United States, though I have her coming into New York Harbor in her mother's arms, and thus believe she was born in Europe.  Did she perhaps not know where she was born?  Since I cannot find any baptismal for her in Europe but also cannot find any baptismal for her two siblings who were born in the United States, I wonder...

The other pleasure was finding two individuals who had middle initials listed.  I had been told that the M for one stood for Mary, and that is was an honorific for her mother.  That has pretty much been proven.  However, it was only a childhood memory - I must have been ten years old -  when I asked an adult what the middle name of the man was.  I was told Peter and that makes sense of the P.

I'll be reporting on 1950 census progress again.

C 2022 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy

1950 CENSUS : SECOND TRY : ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INDEX : THE GREATEST GENERATION LEAVING URBAN AREAS FOR THE SUBURBS

I've just gone into my previous posts about the SPECIAL BABY CENSUS and the SPECIAL NATIVE AMERICAN CENSUS and added some updates... You can easily find those in the posts below.

****** 

Between the 1940 and the 1950 great numbers of people left urban environments and ghettoized ethnic living and so it is more likely that on this 1950 you will have to look for changes in address and possibly a different Enumeration District than on the 1940. So, though you may find the ED district for the 1950 is simply numbered differently from the 1940, and that ancestors are living in the same house or neighborhood, you may not, and be dependent on finding them via indexing.

To sample, I looked into the census for MICHIGAN, Wayne County, in the Detroit and Dearborn eras.  I didn't like it when I found so very many of hits were first names. This was frustrating because I was searching for a surname which is sometimes a given name. Dozens of pages came up. I was not able to find the people I was seeking. The question is, will I wait until INDEXING PROJECTS do a better job of  indexing than the artificial intelligence? What if this family were not counted? I suppose it is a matter of having time.

The Motor City, as Detroit was called, had been the scene of industrial age employment for recent immigrants in earlier years, many of whom were able to purchase houses. This was considered good employment and did not require academic education.; for many workers the goal was to send their children to college. (Employment in the auto manufacturing industry was viable for decades, until Americans started buying Japanese.) It was also a place where with this type of employment, one could buy a home. There was a vast expansion of housing - single family homes - after World War II  also because veterans could acquire low interest home loans on the GI bill. 

The eye is drawn to the BOLDED HITS.  If you look a little closer you will see that there ARE surnames listed, and what follows are the first/given names of the people living in the house who are under that surname.  So SMITH, John is the head of household, and Catherine, Marie, and John Jr. are the wife and children.  If you happen to be looking for someone with the surname John or the like, you may have quite a bit to look through. Still, taking this into consideration, I was not able to find the people I was looking for.

I want to find these people, although they are not my direct genetic bloodline, because they are still related to me. They are relations because they are descended from my parent's siblings. Though I would not include them on charts of direct descent to me, the are directly descended from the same immigrants and properly belong on charts from that point.

C 2022 Ancestry Worship Genealogy

1950 CENSUS : FIRST TRY OF THE NARA SITE! NOT BAD! : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY REPORT

 At around 2 AM this morning, I tried the NARA 1950 site, which was operational at 1 AM.  The artificial intelligence that read the names and provides an INDEX without having to know or impute an ED is impressive.  It could put a lot of humans out of work, sad to say.  However, there will be a need for humans to make corrections.

The first two surnames I put in, I had correct hits on right away.  The next two names also came up easily though there were incorrect letters.  I clicked on a few that were almost right, and it brought up what I was looking for.  In each case the name brought up the ED and also went right to the census page.

The next few searches, however, DID NOT lead me right to the census pages and the REASON is that the FIRST/GIVEN NAMES are listed in the place of SURNAMES!  This reflects the error of the census taker. I will have dozens of Catherines to go through - or maybe Katherines. 

All of this was done knowing the state and county.

I will go back in and put in a few ED districts and read page by page next.

Here were the surprises:

My own mother's age was considerably incorrectly reported so I doubt a census taker actually talked to her. Probably the report was via a landlord.

A cousin's father, who had in 1940 been the sole support of his parents, was now over 30, married to a much younger woman, and they were living with her mother, who was also had other children and their children living with her.  And his wife might have been a twin!

My relative who would be married in two years is the only child of ten who is still living with her elderly immigrant parents.  Which means that they will live alone for the next decade, before he dies.

Another relative is living with his parents, as are his brothers, his sister and her husband. He is the only man in the household who is not working.  Previously on the 1940 he was shown as a high school drop out.  I knew that he was soon going into the CCCs. In the 1950 he has completed high school and is also enrolled in school. He is listed as a World War II veteran. This makes perfect sense. He used the GI Bill to become more educated. (He attended one of the many high schools who had programs for veterans to complete high school and then went further.)

*****

A goal would be to find the location of a person who was in foster care, lived with relatives, and then went into an orphanage and to also locate his parents.

I will also be looking to see if age reportage is consistent from the 1940 in an instance where I suspected a particular woman might really not know how old she was; no birth certificate or record of baptism was ever found, though in the 1960's these were requested from the Old Country.  Now that I'm using the Old Country archives on line, I'm hoping to perhaps get closer to the year of birth.

All for now Friends!

I guess I'll get some sleep