After a required 72-year waiting period, the 1950 Federal Census records are now available to the public online, starting today. You can find the records for Newton here.
There’s a census record book for each Enumeration District in the city, and Newton has lots of Enumeration Districts, numbered 26-1 through 26-116. They are pretty much in order by Ward (1 through 7), and you can see a map of them by clicking any of the “ED Maps” links on that page. In the listing of Enumeration Districts, each includes a description that shows the streets of its boundaries.
You can either scroll through the pages to find the Enumeration District you want, or you can use the Search menu on the left-hand side of the page to specify a particular Enumeration District. (The Search menu also lets you search by “First and/or Last Name,” but it’s not very reliable due to the automated scanning of the handwriting in the books.) In that Search menu, if you specify our county, you have to call it “Newton, Middlesex” — I guess because Middlesex is too large.
Once you find the Enumeration District you want, you can view its census book by clicking the “Population Schedules” link to the right of its description. In those images, the first handwritten column on the left shows street numbers, and the street names are handwritten sideways just to the left of that column. You can scroll through the pages of the book using the arrow controls below the page image. (The streets and street numbers are not in order in the book, since the data collection was done in multiple passes. Segments of a street may show up throughout the book.)
Once you find a page you want, you can download it by clicking on the three-vertical-dots menu to the right of the book’s title above the image of the page.
Thanks for posting, Bruce. It is indeed very fun to see where your family lived in 1950, who lived in your house back then, and other fun stuff (for instance, my grandmother, god rest her soul, apparently lied about her age to the census taker). It will take a bit of work, though. The maps aren’t always easy to use, and you’re at the mercy of the penmanship skills (or lack thereof) in finding your desired results.
In government circles 72 years is considered a timely release of information. If only they can maintain this standard, we should find out who killed JFK 13 years from now.
This link is the official Census Bureau explanation for the 72-year rule:
https://www.census.gov/history/www/genealogy/decennial_census_records/the_72_year_rule_1.html
Or for another possible explanation:
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/04/1074566938/census-data-72-year-rule-privacy-policy-confidentiality