Release of the 1950 Census

The 1950 census is available at the government's census archive at:   https://1950census.archives.gov/  accessible at no cost. Read on for some guidance to use the archives.

The 1950 census was released on April 1, 2022, 72 years after the official date of the '50 census. The delay is prescribed by law.

The census is not indexed so can not yet be searched by name, or other data information. Private enterprises, ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, etc, have teams interpreting the handwriting of the enumerators to build digitized data bases that will be searchable.

In the meantime, the raw data is available at the government archives. At the archives website you can select a state or county and some breakdown within the county. A list of "Enumeration Districts (ED) will appear that are chucks of the county you can browse.

It may be cumbersome to find the ED you need. This website will help: https://stevemorse.org/census/arc1940-1950edmaps.html?year=1940  But be careful to select 1950 then follow the links to maps that are marked with ED names (numbers). For instance, Sutton is divided into ED 18-30 (east of Highway 5) and ED 18-31 (Sutton city - west of Highway 5). (For those under a certain age, Highway 5 was a state highway that went from Highway 41 through downtown Sutton and on to Henderson. Sometime when I was living elsewhere, the state must have taken those signs down and turned the road back to the counties.)

Outside of town, School Creek Township is ED 18-27 and Sutton Township is ED 18-32. 

Grafton Township (Fillmore County) outside of Grafton village is ED 30-21. Grafton village is ED 30-20. 

All Clay County ED's are listed HERE.

Have fun.