Today, April 1st, the 1950 census will be released to the public for the first time. Genealogists are very excited about this release. Census records are one of the most popular records genealogists use for identifying ancestors.
Census records are gold mines for genealogists. They list families together: mothers, fathers, children, and some-times extended family members like aunts, uncles, cous-ins and grandparents if they lived in the same household. Census records include names of everyone in the house, their ages, race, sex, occupation, industry worked in, ad-dress, and sometimes more.
The other reason genealogists are so excited about the 1950 Census is that census records are only released ev-ery ten years. Prior to today genealogists could only look at the 1940 census and all the others ten years apart. You cannot look at private information on the 1960, 1970 or later census records because there is a 72 year restriction to protect people’s privacy. Otherwise, people would not talk to census takers when they knocked on the door.
In spite of the great family information on census records, they were not taken for genealogy or even for tax purposes. The census is taken every ten years to determine how many people are elected to the House of Representatives for each state. There are two senators for each state but the House of Representatives is based on population-hence they conduct a census.
Why the Census is important to African Americans
We stand on our ancestor’s shoulders. If it wasn’t for their hard work, sacrifice and productivity we would not be here today. We owe it to our ancestors to find out who they were, where they lived, and what contributions they made. We do this by researching their lives-doing genealogy. We not only need to know for ourselves, but also to pass along a legacy to our children, unborn descendants and to restore our history. Census records are a primary source for ge-nealogy research and knowing who your ancestors were.
The first baby boomers were born in 1946, right after World War II. These first Baby Boomers will be on the 1950 census. That would likely be you, your parents or grandparents, depending on your age.
1950 is also in the middle of the Great Migration. Some families had recently migrated to Chicago and other northern and western cities. Others were still in the south and had not come north yet. Do you know where your family was in 1950? If not, the 1950 census could answer that question. Some fathers migrated before their family, searching for work first. Many lived with other relatives who preceded them. So the 1950 census could identify ad-ditional family members.
Prior to 1950 Black women were recruited to program the first computers for the government agency that preceded NASA. Dorothy Vaughan was promoted to supervisor of