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Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Your 1950 U.S. Census Finds - The Hork Family

It's Saturday Night -

time for more Genealogy Fun!

Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing is to:

1)  The 1950 United States Census was released by the U.S. National Archives on Friday, 1 April 2022.  

2)  Did you make a list of your census targets and try to find them in the 1950 census?  How did your plans pay off - did you find everyone, or just some of them?

3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post. Be sure to leave a link with your answers in a comment.

Here's mine:

I planned to write about my first endeavors in locating my family in the 1950 census, so I am glad Randy chose this as our theme. I had other tasks to do and finally got researching in the evening of April 1.

My first tries were unsuccessful. The search feature on the National Archives website was not bringing up my family at all. But no worries. I had used Steve Morse’s website and the tool Unified Census ED Finder to locate the Enumeration District number based on address of the person, and my list is here.

However, I still had troubles. Some of the ED numbers were wrong in my list. 2811 P St was not in ED 70-86, but rather in 70-88, and 2300 Portola Way was not in 70-172, but rather 70-166. Another issue was ED 7-43 in Contra Costa County wasn’t listed as a single ED but rather 7-23a, 7-23b, and 7-23c. Luckily each had a description and I made a guess as to which one might have my grandparents and mother.

This post will focus on my dad’s family, the Horks.

Anne Hork & children Lorene & William
My dad and his mother were living at 2739 Sinclair Avenue in Concord, Contra Costa County, California. Browsing in ED 7-30 brought them up. I discovered that my dad’s oldest sister, Lorene, was also living with them. My grandmother was an elementary school teacher at a city school, which I expected. She had been hired in September 1949. Lorene was a receptionist at a doctor’s office. My dad had no job but was asked the extra questions. He was not living in Concord a year ago, nor the county, and did not live on a farm. He lived in Napa County, California the previous year. His parents were born in the U.S., he finished 12th grade, and had no income the past year. The questions were wasted on him.[1]


Sister, June and husband Eugene Soares
They were also living in Concord at 2980 Ponderosa Drive. Eugene, June and one-year-old daughter, “Melani” M. No surprises here. He worked for a wholesale meat company as a salesman.[2] Because they were on page 72, I went to the page they should have been on and found a note to find them on sheet 72. Others on the page said they were not home.


Hamilton, Montana Horks
Searching on Hork didn’t work in Hamilton, Ravalli, Montana, either. But I had the ED number of 41-7 and browsed through the images until I found my dad’s aunt, Carrie Hork at 223 South 3rd Street, 

uncle, Anthony J Hork at 601 South 5th Street, 

and cousin, Richard A. Hork at 804 South 4th Street.[3] 


Carrie had no job, Anthony worked at the County Clerk and Recorder, and answered the extra questions: his father was born in Germany and mother in the U.S., finished twelfth grade, worked 52 weeks, made $2496 the previous year and $300 in other business, and never served in the armed forces. Richard worked as a public accountant.

The one person who was found using the index was Frank Hork, who was living at the Montana State Hospital. He was asked the extra question but the only answer checked was he was living in same place the year before.[4]

There are more Horks to find, but I don’t have addresses and will have to wait until the census is completely indexed. It probably won’t take long.


[1] 1950 U.S. census, Contra Costa Co, California, ED 7-30, sheet 12, household 147, Anne M. Hork family; U.S. National Archives, 1950 Census (https://1950census.archives.gov/search/ : accessed 1 April 2022).

[2] 1950 U.S. census, Contra Costa Co, California, ED 7-35, sheet 72, household 122, Eugene F. Soares family; U.S. National Archives, 1950 Census (https://1950census.archives.gov/search/ : accessed 1 April 2022).

[3] For Carrie, see 1950 U.S. census, Ravalli Co, Montana, ED 41-7, sheet 7, household 118, Carrie M. Hork; U.S. National Archives, 1950 Census (https://1950census.archives.gov/search/ : accessed 1 April 2022). For Anthony, see 1950 U.S. census, Ravalli Co, Montana, ED 41-7, sheet 2, household 20, Anthony Hork family; U.S. National Archives, 1950 Census (https://1950census.archives.gov/search/ : accessed 1 April 2022). For Richard, see 1950 U.S. census, Ravalli Co, Montana, ED 41-7, sheet 13, household 207, Richard A. Hork family; U.S. National Archives, 1950 Census (https://1950census.archives.gov/search/ : accessed 1 April 2022).

[4] 1950 U.S. census, Deer Lodge Co, Montana, ED 12-6, sheet 25, household 1 (cont), line 7, Frank. Hork; U.S. National Archives, 1950 Census (https://1950census.archives.gov/search/ : accessed 1 April 2022).

Copyright © 2022 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

  1. I had the same experience as you trying out the search feature and also used Steve Morse's website. I didn't have any issue with the ED pages, though. It looks like you had to do a bit more searching and browsing to find your families.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you had mismatches between the ED's you got from Steve's site and where those addresses actually were, you should let Steve know. He always wants to know when the tools on his site are not entirely accurate and updates the tools when possible.

    ReplyDelete

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