US Records · 1950 census
The 1950 census was released on 1 April 2022, after the 72 years that federal law requires. It is the last census that caught many Polish immigrants of the great migration alive, alongside their children and grandchildren.
How to search it
The National Archives published the 1950 census free online with a name index created by machine reading of the handwriting, since corrected by volunteers. You can search by name and state, or browse by enumeration district if you know the address. Genealogy websites have since added their own indexes, so a name missed in one can be found in another.
What it asks
- Name, relationship, age, marital status and state or country of birth for everyone
- Whether a foreign-born person had been naturalized
- Occupation, industry and employer type
- Sample-line questions, asked of every fifth person, including the country of birth of the father and mother, schooling and income
- The address, which leads to the parish, city directories and neighbors
Why it matters for Polish research
By 1950 the youngest immigrants of the pre-1914 wave were in their fifties and sixties. The census shows which of them had naturalized, where the family lived, and who the American-born children were, which is often the link from living relatives back to the immigrant generation. It also records the post-war displaced persons who arrived from 1948.
After 1950
The 1960 census will not be released until 2032. For the years after 1950, use city directories, naturalization and alien files, Social Security records, obituaries and church records.
If you cannot find a family in the 1950 index, search for a neighbor or a child with a less common name, or browse the enumeration district for the address in a 1950 city directory.
How we can help
Immigration & Passenger Records uses the census from 1900 to 1950 to build the American timeline of a family before the search moves to Poland.