NEW CENSUS HELPER TOOL FROM MYHERITAGE

Myheritage’s new Census Helper tool has been developed for those working with the 1950 US Census

As family historians around the world access the 1950 US Census, Myheritage’s latest innovation scans your family tree to work out which relatives are likely to be featured on this census.

The tool is available to anyone who has a family tree on Myheritage, and it provides a convenient button next to each relative that it highlights, allowing you to click straight through to the census records that feature the ancestor in question. You can also export the list of results to use outside of the site.

To find the relevant ancestors, the Census Helper rules out those who missed being included in the census: they were either born after April 1950, or died before that month. When dates for an individual are missing in the family tree, it deduces them from other relatives. For example, an undated individual who fathered a child in 1840 will not appear in the 1950 census.

Once it determines that a certain individual was alive in 1950, it searches for evidence that they were in the census.