One of the resources that we were informed about on January 8 when the bloggers visited Ancestry.com was the 1950 census substitute. Ancestry.com announced this last week that the resource was now posted.
This “substitute” for the yet-to-be-released 1950 census is made up of about 2500 city directories. My first foray into the collection was made right after the Ancestry.com announcement. After a half hour or so, I was so frustrated that I moved on to more important things to be done that day. This morning, I went back and spent as hour or so searching, as well as browsing through the collection, with much more success.
My frustration came about because I was searching for specific individuals that I thought might be found within the collection. I kept getting false hits during my searches because the given name and surname of the person I was looking for were often “close” to each other on the page, but were not on the same line, leaving me grinding my teeth.
This morning I tried searching by surname within specific areas with a lot more luck. I also found that browsing page by page through directories for specific towns was successful.
I did a search on the surname “Meitzler” in New York State in the 1950 Census Substitute. I got three hits. The following image is of the results page.
By clicking on the Meitzler entry for 1946 Irondequoit, New York, I got a page that included my Uncle Frank Meitzler, his wife Ora, and their adult children Elmore, Doris, and Irene. Following is a screen shot of a page from Polk’s Irondequoit Directory for 1946.
Search for your ancestors in the 1950 Census Substitute at Ancestry.com.
FTC Statement: GenealogyBlog has affiliate agreements with Ancestry.com, although I have yet to ever get a check from Ancestry, as I don’t take the time to encode my blog in such a way that I will receive any credit if someone subscribes. Ancestry.com paid for my lunch and dinner, as well as my transportation by van from SLC to Provo, and return on Blogger’s Day, January 8, 2010. They also paid for my dinner at the annual Ancestry.com dinner January 9, 2010. I am an avid Ancestry.com supporter, not because it profits me personally, but because I believe genealogists are well-served by the company. I haven’t always felt that way, but that’s another story…
Leland – Thank you for the follow up on this. Like you, I think, my first attempt didn’t find anything of interest, too may hits, none of which were even close. After reading this blog, I took another look. Lots of good hits, even found myself and kids in the results.
Thank you for posting and the follow up on this.
Russ