Census Surprise

By now, most of my readers have already found their immediate family on the 1950 census. But I’m curious, were there any surprises in your work with the 1950 census?

Thanks to my preparation for the 1950 Census, finding my parents and grandparents was relatively easy. My dad’s family was found exactly where I expected – living at 911 Second Avenue in Dodge City, Kansas on ED 29-15.

I even registered my email address to transcribe the CRAWFORD names found on this page.

So, on April 2nd, I expected to be able to search for the CRAWFORD surname to get back to the page. That’s when I discovered that the names were not being indexed as CRAWFORD but as CRAMFORD.

When I looked at my transcription history and clicked on the ‘i’, I learned that I will have to wait for the ’24 hours’ to expire before my transcription would appear — and then only if approved by a moderator.

When I searched the county where my mother was living for the BRILES surname, I found that her sister was correctly indexed by the computer. However, the Briles family on the previous page had the surname correctly indexed but the given names were not correctly read.

While discovering that I have to wait and hope that my transcriptions replace the computer indexing, those weren’t the only surprises in the 1950 census.

One of the first surprises was that I did not find my great-grandmother, Josie Crawford, living with my grandparents in Dodge City. Nor was she living in the household of my great-aunt, Esther Crawford Noll. Thus, she is likely living with a different child. I likely will need to wait for indexing to find her.

Another surprise was a chance discovery of my father living in Emporia, Kansas after finding him listed with his parents in Dodge City. Since my dad was a student at Kansas State Teachers College at the time, I shouldn’t have been surprised to find him in Emporia — but I wasn’t looking for him there.

However, my biggest surprise was finding E. G. Briles, whom I believe to be my great-grandfather with a wife named Anna. My great-grandmother, Frances Artlissa Ricketts Briles died in 1947, thus I expected to find Edward G. Briles as a widower. Thus, finding him in the 1950 census with a wife named Anna was a HUGE surprise.

A search of the Kansas, U.S., City and County Census Records, 1919-1961, confirms that an Anna Briles was living in Yates Center, Kansas with TWO people in her household in 1949 and 1950. Thus, I will need to do further research to see if I can verify a marriage for Edward G. Briles between 1947 and 1950.

So, how about you? Did you have any surprises in the 1950 census?