The 1950 United States Census was released at 11pm on March 31 (in my location - Texas) on the National Archives website, and in the span of about an hour and a half, I already found my spouse (and his parents and sisters), my parents and grandparents, my husband's grandparents, and a few of our aunts and uncles that were out on their own. I'm about to go to bed and get some sleep (it's almost 1am), but I will be back at this tomorrow.
The National Archives site has been easy to use. They used machine learning to teach the software to decipher handwriting, so there is a rudimentary index. I'd also done some preparatory work to determine likely enumeration districts in advance.
Here is the first entry I came across that surprised me. I was searching for my husband's aunt, Ivis Moore Mew (1905-2004), who I knew lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1950. What I did NOT expect was to find her sharing a home with my spouse's paternal grandmother (Ivis' sister's mother-in-law), Betty Dickson Gresham (1888-1976)! I knew Betty was also in Corpus Christi at the time, but I wasn't sure where, and I did not expect to find them together! They were sharing a house at 101 Roosevelt and were both widows, Betty since 1941, and Ivis for just a year. Ivis was still working as a registered nurse at Spohn Hospital; Betty was apparently retired.
Click on the image below (a snip from the census page) to make it larger.
Wow, what a surprising coincidence. Were your family and your spouse's family friends when you were children? Did your families know each other for several generations? I think it's interesting that Betty is named as head and Ivis is identified as a partner, though in 1950 I'm not sure how else she could have been identified. I suppose it might have to do with the directions for the census takers?
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the find!
Nancy, yes, I just looked at the instructions for the enumerator, and section 111 in the appendix states that "if two or more persons who are not related by blood, marriage, or adoption share one dwelling unit as partners, write "Head" for one and "Partner" for the other(s)." See my further comment below in my reply to Marian.
DeleteOh, wait, I just reread the paragraph about Betty and Ivis and see that they are both from your husband's side of the family. My mistake.
ReplyDeleteNancy, yes, they had probably met each other at family events at my husband's parents' home. Francis and Jewel (my parents-in-law) probably would not have met if Jewel hadn't moved to Corpus Christi at the suggestion of her older sister Ivis (who had been there since 1926), and Betty moved to Corpus Christi sometime between 1942 and 1944, to be closer to her two children living there. Thanks for commenting!
DeleteI notice Betty is head of household and Ivis is "partner" in household. Didn't realize that was even an option for the enumerator to use!
ReplyDeleteMarian, thanks to the enumerator instructions you linked to in one of your census prep posts, I found the definition of partner, given in my reply above to Nancy's comment. I'm a little puzzled as to why Betty is the head, given that Ivis is the breadwinner, but perhaps Betty was at this location first, or is listed as head simply because she is older. They were each at different addresses by 1955.
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