US Census Available 72 years

Due to Federal law, the Federal US Census has the “72-year’ rile. It states that personal information on those listed in a census can not be publicly viewed by the public after the census was taken for 72 years. The reason: is to protect the privacy of the individuals on that census and their families. However, information to a certain individual named in the census or their legal heir can request to view that person’s census information.

The next federal census to be released to the public is the 1950 Census. It becomes available on Friday, April 1, 2022. Yet there will not have a name index right away. So finding people in the census will involve searching by location instead. Even when a name index becomes available, there will still be many reasons for doing location searches. It will take about 4-6 months to have a complete name index.

A reminder, the official date the census was taken in 1950 was April 1, 1950, but that does not mean every person was questioned on that one day, it took the census taker a good month to complete the listing of names and information on the census. All 48 states plus territories like Alaska and Hawaii had the census done.

Besides the series of general questions in 1950 for each person – name, age, birthplace, etc. six-person on a one-page30 names list of the census were asked special sampling questions. Some examples of the sampling questions were: number of years in current marital status, females-number of live births, did you attend school in the past month, what was your highest grade completed, where did you live prior to this address, what is your income and what was your usual occupation.

This 1950 census will have many of the names of the early ‘baby-boomers’ – those born after World War II. You will have many family relatives and ancestors for sure on the 1950 census. Then the 1960 federal census will become available in April 2032.

Two databases that will have early on methods, after April 1, especially using locations to locate families will be FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com. So have fun looking up the 1950 census on your family, time is almost here.

Photo: 1950 Census

Related FamilyTree.com Blogs:

U.S. Federal Censuses

What Census Records Say about Your Family

Reading Between the Lines on a Census