On April 1st, 2022, the 1950 US Census was released to the public. The National Archives and Records Administration releases the Census Records 72 years after their creation. Since the questions were asked of residents of the United States relative to their household on April 1, 1950, that is the “creation” date of the record.
National Archives 1950 Census logo- click to search
I have been disappointed by the searchable information that can be had at Family Search and Ancestry, despite the pre-release hype. While I was able to locate my mother and her parents in California and my paternal grandfather and his parents in Colorado through the National Archives, neither can be found on Family Search & Ancestry.
Through the Archives, I could search by state and Surname and it would list all of the computer-indexed names; if I narrow by county where they lived they were the first on the list that came up.
Image of the 1950 US Census for Marin County, California, Enumeration District 21-3 showing the Turner and Dimmick families from the National Archives.
When I try to find the same information on Family Search, I can specify the state (California being on the the few states that have a partial index), but if I search on Dimmick I have yet to have the correct family group come up. I have verified the indexing for at least 7 20-name groupings and have not yet found this page. Two of the 20-name groupings didn’t even have a Dimmick or name close to it.
Ancestry is a little better in that if you know the address of where the person was living in 1950, you can look up the ED and then look through that ED until you find the right page. In this case, it would have been on the 16th page or the 17th image for the ED. When the search feature was attempted using Novato, Marin County, California and Dimmick 142 results were returned, none of which are in California, most are in Vermont, all of them were in states that Family Search does not yet have available.
Find Your Family-well not quite yet.
If you are anxious to get to the data, then I would suggest that you use NARA’s website and verifying a few names while you are there. You can sign-up to get updates on the states you are interested in from Family Search.