Finding Census Pages Based on Enumeration District

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Where to Locate the Digitized Census Records

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) holds the microfilm scans of the census records. It has digitized many of these already (including for 1940 and 1950) with plans to digitize the rest so they are all freely available online. Other genealogy platforms have also digitized these records, though seeing them there may require an account or subscription. NARA provides this list of the different censuses that have been released with information about where they are available.

The census pages are grouped together by their enumeration district. This means that if you browse page by page, you will see all the pages in one district before seeing the pages belonging to the next district.

Accessing Specific Census Pages for an Enumeration District

NARA provides slightly different interfaces for browsing the 1940 and 1950 censuses. You can access the 1940 census through the NARA catalog. Here you would “Search within this Series” for the county and then would again search for the enumeration district.

For the 1950 census, NARA has created a searchable platform where you can directly enter the state, county, and enumeration district. This is a good platform to learn how to browse records. The interactive content below illustrates how to use this platform. Scroll down to advance the content. Please note this experience is best viewed on laptops and desktops.

Scanning Census Pages for an Address

Once you have accessed the correct census pages, you will need to read through them. The challenge is that each enumeration district contains dozens of pages with 30–50 rows each, depending on the census. To speed up your research, you will want to scan these records.

Where to Look

First focus on the street: In the first column, pay special attention to the street (written out so that they span multiple rows). Skip the rows that do not belong to the street you are looking for.
House number: When you have found the street of interest, focus on the house number in the second column. The census taker likely visited the houses out of order so expect the number to jump around.

Address fields in a 1950 US Census Population Schedule for Hoboken, New Jersey. Enumeration District 27-66, Sheet 80.

View of Census population schedule, focused on the street and address columns.
View of 1950 Enumeration District map of Hoboken, New Jersey with district boundaries in orange and corporate limits delineated with a thick black line.

Keep Going!

When the street ends, hope is not lost: Census takers rarely talked to everybody on their first attempt. As you browse, you will see that streets can reappear on later pages of the enumeration district. In practical terms: If you don’t find the house number on the street, keep looking to see if the street appears again on later pages.

1950 Census enumeration district map for Hoboken in Hudson County, New Jersey, 1948. (National Archives)

Apply What You’ve Learned

Henrietta Fromholtz served in the Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II. In both the 1930 and 1940 census, she lived at the same address: 108 Tenth Street in Hoboken, New Jersey. We suspect, therefore, that she also lived there in 1950. We have looked up the enumeration district for that address in 1950. It is 27-15. To answer the following questions, please use NARA’s platform to look up the census pages in Fromholtz’s enumeration district.

1950 Census on NARA