During this whole process of preparing for the 1950 census, the SteveMorse.org site has been extremely helpful. I have located so many maps and Enumeration Districts for my family through their One-Step site. And their transcriptions of the Enumeration District descriptions have really narrowed down which Enumeration District I needed for my families. But what happens if the street you are looking for doesn't show up during the search?
That happened to me recently when I was trying to look up an address for some family in Texas. I knew the address was correct because I talked with the family member who lived there in 1950. But no matter what I did, I couldn't find the right map. Eventually, I did locate the right map and Enumeration District, but it took some extra steps that I wanted to share with you. Here are two ways that I was able to find the Enumeration Districts when the streets didn't come up.
1. Use nearby streets
The Census Bureau would use whatever maps they could get their hands on, so the map used might be older than 1950. And the street may not be on that older map. That happened with a different address I was looking up. I knew the street existed in 1950 as I had a 1950 city directory. But it wouldn't show up in the search. So I searched nearby streets and found the correct ED Map.
I used Google Maps to help me find the location of Coral Drive first. I looked at the surrounding streets and chose a couple to search by on the SteveMorse.org site. That brought up the map I needed. Then I went back and forth between Google Maps and the ED map to find the location of where the street should be. The ED map was put together in 1942, so that's why the street did not show up. It hadn't been developed yet. See the map images below.
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| 1950 (1942) Enumeration District Map Affton, Missouri Coral Drive is supposed to be in the circle |
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| Google Maps Affton, Missouri Coral Drive is in the circle |
Thanks to the surrounding streets like Weber and Fayette, I was able to find the area where Coral Drive should have been.
2. Use Google Maps to find specific areas
I already touched on using Google Maps in the previous tip, but this is a different way Google Maps can be helpful. What happens when you can't bring up ANY nearby streets? That's what I ran into with this next example.
I am not familiar with this area like I was for the last address. I searched for the street, Darcus, on SteveMorse.org but nothing came up. I saw a Dorcus and thought it was maybe a misspelling, but, nope, that didn't come up on Google Maps. I tried to search the nearby streets and still couldn't come up with anything.
Finally, a search of the area of Houston, Harris County, Texas brought up the following Map in a collection. But as you can see, there was a big blank section of the map.
%20-%20Harris%20County%20-%20Houston%20-%20ED%20263-565.jpg) |
| Texas (TX) - Harris County - Houston - ED 263-565 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/48301885#.YjsqRLNxePU.link |
As you can see on the map, there are different areas mentioned in the blank area. I compared this with Google Maps. I found Bellaire, West University Place, and Southside Place. The Point is where Darcus Street is located.
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| Google Maps Houston, Harris County, Texas |
I went back to the SteveMorse.org site, and for the city dropdown menu, I selected West University Place since that was on the map and it's near Darcus. This is the map that came up.
%20-%20Harris%20County%20-%20Houston%20-%20Southside%20-%20ED%20101-4,%205.jpg) |
| Texas (TX) - Harris County - West University Place - ED 101-6 to 24 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/48301911#.YjsxaOBpbbA.link |
While I thought this was going to help me find the Enumeration District but I was wrong. After comparing this to Google Maps, the street, Darcus, appears to be right in the area of South Side, which has no ED listed, nor does it have the street name listed.
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| Google Maps Southside Place, Houston, Harris County, Texas Darcus Street is the point |
Well, this explains why the street didn't show up when I searched for it. But is there a map that has an ED listed? Back to the SteveMorse.org site. For the city dropdown menu, there was another option to try: Houston Vacinity. I checked through that collection of maps and came across the following map.
%20-%20Harris%20County%20-%20Houston%20-%20ED%20101-4,%205.jpg) |
| Texas (TX) - Harris County - Houston - ED 101-4, 5 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/48301901#.YjtQTMQdK2Y.link |
I had to zoom in on this map, but I found what I was looking for.
%20-%20Harris%20County%20-%20Houston%20-%20ED%20101-4,%205-ZOOMED.png) |
| Texas (TX) - Harris County - Houston - ED 101-4, 5 (Zoomed in) https://catalog.archives.gov/id/48301901#.YjtQTMQdK2Y.link |
An excellent tutorial--thank you so much for sharing your methodology!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Marian! Your help and tips have always been great and appreciated. We are all going to have so much fun going through the 1950 Census.
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