Genealogists and historians can get a microscopic look at sweeping historical trends when individual records from the 1950 census are released this week. Researchers view the records that will be released Friday as a gold mine, and amateur genealogists see it as a way to fill gaps in family trees. The records will be indexed into a searchable website. The digitized forms have information about household members' names, race, sex, age, address, occupation, hours worked in the previous week, salary, education, marital status and the country where their parents were born. The records couldn't be released for confidentiality reasons until 72 years after they were gathered by census takers knocking on every home in the U.S.
The information should be a gold mine for scholars and genealogists, the Census Bureau says, and will provide a fascinating look at America at the midpoint of the 20th century.
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Data from the 1950 Census will be revealed Friday after a rule that required 6,373 microfilm census rolls to be kept private for 72 years has elapsed. 1950,
After the 1950 census is released, Ancestry will use handwriting technology to scan the pages. Indexing the census will be done through FamilySearch's Get Involved app.