More than 50% of 151 million names in the 1950 U.S. census have been reviewed with help from more than 115,000 volunteers, according to an email sent to FamilySearch patrons on Friday, May 21.
Nevada was recently added as one of seven states where records are available for searching on FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com, according to a FamilySearch email from May 13. The other states are Delaware, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.
FamilySearch and Ancestry have partnered to create a searchable index for the 1950 census. The images were released on April 1, 2022, by the National Archives, after the required 72-year wait. Ancestry workers have been using the company’s proprietary artificial intelligence handwriting-recognition technology to scan the census forms.
Read more: The 1950 U.S. census will be released on April 1. What to do now to prepare to help create the digital index
The images then go to FamilySearch for volunteers and there are three review tasks. The first two are review of the names and header information in the Get Involved app and web experience to verify and correct information to help improve the index.
A third step is reviewing families to group them by household and reviewing the details for each person as all of the fields in the census are being indexed, which is completed through the Get Involved web experience, according to information from FamilySearch.
Read more: FamilySearch’s new Get Involved app allows you to do simple family history tasks in seconds
FamilySearch has a map of the progress for each state on its website.
As of Monday morning, May 23, Utah and Nevada were listed at 100% completed, with all three review tasks completed.
The review of Idaho’s census records is 81% completed with the remaining work to review families to group them by households and review the rest of the information for each person. The review of Arizona’s census records was 71% finished, with the review-families step about 14% completed.
Four more states — New Mexico, Oregon, Montana and Florida — are between 65% and 70% completed. Both names and the document headers are 100% reviewed and reviewing families is the remaining work.
Other states that are 50% to 65% completed are Alabama, Colorado, Maine, North Dakota and Washington state.
Review for names and records for more than a dozen other states — California, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware and Rhode Island — is between 25% and 50% completed.
See www.familysearch.org/getinvolved/1950 for updates on the 1950 U.S. census and how to help, including what projects are getting close to being finished.
