Even though access to the US census for 1950 is limited due to the lack of indexes, a few of the states have been indexed and it is a work in progress. For areas that have not been indexed, there is an alternative to having to browse through hundreds of images trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. At Ancestry.com there is the 1950 Census District Finder. If you know the full address of the household you are looking for, you can enter it in this tool to locate the enumeration district on a map of the United States. I was able to use this tool to locate my paternal grandparents in Hastings, Nebraska and my maternal grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama in the U.S. Census for 1950.

If you know the enumeration district then you only need to scroll through 30 or 40 images at the most.

My maternal grandmother, Dorothy, was living with her third husband, Pierce Askew, and her son Robert Coarsey, my Uncle Bob, who was 12 years old at the time. They resided at 2909 Central Ave. Apt. 4, Birmingham, Jefferson, Alabama. I know this address because in my mother’s memoirs there are several telegrams sent by my mother to that address in the early 1950s.

In 1950, my paternal grandparents, Dr. L. J. and Geraldine DeBacker resided at 1000 North Kansas Ave., Hastings, Nebraska. Living with them at the time was their 11-year-old daughter, my aunt Judy.