It was the first census after World War II. The baby boom had begun. The Great Migration of Black residents from the Jim Crow South to places like Detroit and Chicago was in full swing. And some industrial cities reached their peak populations before Americans started moving to the suburbs.
Starting Friday, genealogists and historians get an under-the-microscope look at those sweeping historical trends with the release of individual records on 151 million people from the 1950 census. Researchers view the records as a gold mine and a snapshot in time, while amateur genealogists see it as a way to fill gaps in family trees.
