'''The 1950 Census'''
''Roland's guide to surviving The 1950 Census.''
Archives.gov has released the 1950 Federal U.S. census films today, April 1, 2022. You may browse them here:
https://1950census.archives.gov/search/
Census records are made public 72 years after the original census date.
Many of the town names in the 1950 census aren't indexed yet. However you can find their Enumeration District numbers and maps by using the site below.
https://stevemorse.org/census/arc1940-1950edmaps.html?year=1950
Or just Google "Viewing 1950 Enumeration District Maps in One Step" and click on the second link. Make sure to select 1950.
Many names are also not indexed yet or are indexed improperly. Ancestry.com is attempting an initial index using artificial intelligence. The initial results are promising but contain many errors and are far from comprehensive at this point. So how can we make sure of these new census films?
Here's an example of using the enumeration district maps for the 1950 census. I searched for my great-grandmother Ada (Foss) Stewart (1876-1951) and her second husband Leon Stewart (1891-1968) and found no hits at all. Ada had built a Cape style home at 57 Kirkland Circle in Wellesley, MA and I can see Kirkland Circle in Enumeration District 11-338. Now I simply go to https://1950census.archives.gov/search/ and enter 11-338 under enumeration district and page through 11-338 and her census record is now easy to locate. The site has the option to enter a proper transcription of the record so other people can find it later. Currently they are using artificial intelligence to transcribe records. The process is slow and error prone so manual transcriptions will be essential to make these records useful in future.
{{https://media.geni.com/p13/d5/76/53/4b/53444860bd2010ae/15-a2-003-0...}}
{{https://media.geni.com/p13/75/01/50/72/53444860bd291d11/ada_foss_19...}}
Ada Foss (1876-1951) was a concert pianist and 17 years an organist for the West Roxbury Unitarian Church. She was the daughter of an author, poet, real estate developer and travel adventurer James Henry Foss by his first wife Mary Hardy Burnham. Ada married first on 20 Dec 1896 in Boston to Frederic Warren Kidder Baker (1872-1941) who was an Ethnobotanist and Pharmacist who traded in London and during the great depression started a W.P.A program to replicate the medicinal herb farms of the Shakers in New England. Ada and Frederic were parents of Roland Henry Baker, Sr. Ada married second in 1921 in Brookline to Leon Osmund Stewart who was 15 years her junior. Leon or “Lan” was in the wholesale office furniture business. They lived until the late 1940’s at the Stewart Homestead site at 45 Forest Street in Wellesley - an enormous lodge that accommodated ten borders and features formal dining with business professionals each night. They built a home about ten blocks away at 57 Kirkland Circle in Wellesley where Ada died on 14 Apr 1951. Leon married second to May Isabell Feeley in 1952. Here we see Ada and Leon at 57 Kirkland Circle in the 1950 census.
