The 1950 Federal Census will be released by the National Archives on April 1, 2022, 72 years after they began collecting data on the 150 million Americans living in the states and territories at the time! How can you help? Sign up to help the extraction process! This extraction will be unique. The records will first go through an artificial intelligence machine (AI) and if you have ever seen an obituary digitized solely this way you know many mistakes are made. So here comes you as an arbitrator. You will look at the original document and the AI extraction and make the final decision on the information being digitized for the public. The more volunteers, the faster this can get out to the world! The 1940 census, done strictly with volunteers, took 4 months so with this new process I bet it can be done in half the time!
Something that is really unique is you will be able to work on records related to your family and for locations in which you have interest! This is how it works. Once they open the verification process up, probably in mid-April, you will go to let’s say OHIO and put in the surname, JORDAN. You can even narrow the search down to the county and city your ancestors are from. The search engine will then show you all the Jordans found in that exact location. You only have to verify the Jordan family names on that page. If you do discover these are your relatives, you can share that extraction with your family once you saved that verification.
How do you sign up? I know there is a full-time missionary opportunity that requires 12 hours a week commitment. If you are interested in that level, call FamilySearch. Below that are volunteers who can do 2-8 hours a week.
Right now you can go to FamilySearch.org. On the first screen there is a blue bar with “1950 US Census.” Click on “Learn More.” On the next page you will click on “sign up for updates.” You will receive emails to keep you informed and help you get started. You can also receive updates about the 1950 Census from Ancestry.com.
– Susan Wise, Consultant, Granite Family History Center
I belong to the Glacial Park Ward in Granite View Stake. I headed the 1940 census work in our ward and would love to help our ward with this new census. Is there a specific time I can come learn how to teach this to my ward and also bring them there to a learning session?
Sandy Morgan
You can come to the center anytime during open hours and a consultant can help you with this or you can jump right in on https://www.familysearch.org/getinvolved/1950. The process is very simple. The records have been indexed by a computer program and volunteers merely have to check for accuracy.