Yesterday, I was delighted to present a session on Researching African American Family History & Genealogy on behalf of the Nashville Chapter of the Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society. This is our fourth year partnering with Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage to conduct part of their Black History Month programming and it went well! We had a turnout of more than 60 people and during our post-presentation consultation sessions, had a chance to interact individually to help answer research questions.
This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks series prompt is “In the Census.” Well, a standard part of my presentations on getting started in your research is that the first set of records to go to are the US Census records. It never ceases to amaze me just how much information can be gleaned when working backward consecutively through the years. During the presentation, I explained how the 1950 census will be released in 2022 and I thought to myself – wow- we are so close! I did quite a bit of transcription for the 1940 census and I am looking forward to hopefully being able to do the same for 1950.
I am already beginning to think about who I’ll search for first in the 1950 census and it will definitely be my grandparents:
- maternal grandmother: Alice McNair – in April 1950, my grandmother had given birth to my uncle Stanley. He was born in Brooklyn, NY so I expect to find her and him there; he was only 6 weeks old on census enumeration day. The address on his birth certificate is 44 MacDonough Street in Brooklyn, so I expect to find them there.
- maternal grandfather: Herman Robinson – my grandfather discharged from the US Navy in 1946 and would marry my grandmother in September 1950. I expect he will be in New York somewhere, but I do not know where. I wonder if he will be near his own mother, Lucinda Lennon Robinson – she would be living on Harlem River Drive in Manhattan.
- paternal grandmother: Cora Mae Lawhorn – she married my grandfather in 1951, so I expect to find her still living at home with her parents in Craven County, NC.
- paternal grandfather: William Koonce Sr. – I also expect to find him still living at home with his parents – also in Craven County, NC.
I will then search for my great-grandparents as 7 of the 8 were still alive in 1950. Until the 1950 census is transcribed, we will need to navigate them by knowing the enumeration districts, so check Steve Morse’s One-Step site for those details.
And so that I don’t forget my plan, this blog entry is going into my calendar for the first week of April 2022. Are you prepared?
I haven’t started thinking about the 1950 census – but really the people I would want to hunt for are collateral lines that I’ve started researching after finding DNA cousins. I remember how exciting it was with the 1900 census was released – and in the pre-computer era, too! Thanks for the reminder to start thinking about the next one 🙂
Hi Anne – thanks for the comment! Collateral lines make great targets for searching.