Workshop - March 22 - 1950 Census

This week we took a look at the what we might find on the 1950 census, which will be released April 1, 2022.  The usual questions included name, age, relationship to the head of household, marital status and birthplace. There was a detailed housing questionnaire on the back that was not microfilmed so that is unavailable, as well as the agricultural survey.

Six of the respondents on each page were selected to answer the supplementary questions at the bottom of each page. The sixth person in that group answered several extra questions. 

You can examine the 24-page "census enumerator instruction manual" to learn how census takers were trained to complete this task.

College students were enumerated where they were attending school, and an effort was made to count all U.S. citizens living abroad.

A large part of the census dealt with employment questions about the previous week, as well as supplementary data for the six selected respondents.

The National Archives will release the census on a dedicated website along with an index generated by OCR technology. If your surnames do not appear because of problems with the OCR reading, visit Steve Morse's website for help in determining the enumeration district.

Ancestry and My Heritage are also posting the census and will add an index. FamilySearch is partnering with Ancestry to assist in correcting any problems with the index and is looking for volunteers to help with the project.

How many members will be able to find their own names in the 1950 census?

Today's Chuckle

 

Shared by Maureen Salter

Arizona Genealogy Day 2022

Saturday, April 2, 2022

Registration is FREE!

Registration is limited to 1000 participants.

The presentations will be on Zoom.

Please note that this event will NOT be recorded.

Visit https://azsos.libcal.com/calendar/starl/azgenday22

Presentations:

    Defining Potential Migration Routes & Locating Crucial Steps to the West

    An Introduction to Researching Your Mexican Ancestors

    Genealogy Gems in Government Documents

    The Genealogy-Do-Over: A Year of Learning from My Mistakes

Free Irish Conference on Legacy Saturday!

 

Speaker	Title
Natalie Bodle	Finding your ancestors in Irish land valuation records (brand new!)
John Grenham	Foundations of Irish Genealogy 2: The Major Records I, General Register Office
John Grenham	Foundations of Irish Genealogy 4: The Major Records III, Church Records
Natalie Bodle	Using Irish newspapers and other printed material
David Ouimette	Genealogical Treasures in Irish Archives

The cost to attend is, well, zero. Viewing all five classes is free. There's no registration necessary. Just visit www.familytreewebinars.com/conference and start learning. Even the syllabus is free for the day.

Irish Research

Our topic for the week of St. Patrick's Day was "Finding Irish Ancestors." We learned a bit of the history and geography of Ireland, including the administrative divisions: townland, parish, county and province.

It is necessary to use all available records in the U. S. (or Canada) to learn a possible place of birth before trying to access Irish sources. The FamilySearch Wiki and its Irish Research page are extremely helpful.

Useful websites include Ask About Ireland, Irish Genealogy, National Archives of Ireland, PRONI, Townlands Database and John Grenham's Irish Ancestors.

March 8 Workshop - Family Tree

We used the first part of the workshop to review some of the features of the FamilySearch Family Tree. We looked at adding sources, analyzing records, editing dates and locations, merging a duplicate and learning how to merge by ID number. Annie also demonstrated the use of "Record Seek" to attach information from Ancestry to a family tree person.

There was also time for assistance with Legacy software, FamilyTree questions and other genealogy-related problems.

3rd Annual Webinar Marathon

Maureen has just shared this announcement from Legacy Family Tree Webinars. Use the link to view the titles of all classes.

Register at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com/24. Live attendance for each session is limited to the first 1,000 attendees. If you can't join us in real time, we've got you covered: all recordings will be available afterwards absolutely free for a week. Beyond that, you can watch them anytime with a webinar membership to FamilyTreeWebinars.com.

Remember the Ladies!

This week Maureen provided a great reminder of many ways we can attempt to discover information about our female ancestors.

Vital records, census, and cemetery records are some of the common sources we all know to use. We should also consider divorce records, pension records, probate or land records, and newspapers. Sometimes unusual given names and unsourced family trees will contain clues.

Maureen also suggested doing some research to find out what her life would have been like in a particular time period. The handout had many suggestions for further study. Thanks, Maureen, for an excellent presentation!

 

MyHeritage DNA Special

Maureen has shared the news that MyHeritage is offering a free upload of your DNA results this week. The offer is good through March 8.

Special promotion: all advanced DNA features are free forever for DNA data uploaded this week!

https://www.myheritage.com/dna/upload