Majority-Black Detroit has become the largest U.S. city to challenge its figures from the 2020 census following a national head count in which the U.S. Census Bureau acknowledges that a higher percentage of African Americans were undercounted than last decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Leaders of Michigan's largest city, which is more than three-quarters Black, had questioned the results of the 2020 census since last December when they released a report suggesting that more than 8% of the occupied homes in 10 Detroit neighborhoods may have been undercounted.

Detroit filed its challenge late last week, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In a letter to the Census Bureau, Mayor Michael Duggan said insufficient resources and not enough census takers were devoted to the count in Detroit, resulting in an undercount of unoccupied homes that could amount to tens of thousand of residents being overlooked.

You can read more in an article by Mike Schneider and Corey Williams published in Yahoo News at: https://news.yahoo.com/detroit-largest-city-challenge-2020-204315520.html.

What a great idea! A new time capsule feature could start some bigger conversations amongst Irish descendants — 100 years from now.

At the end of this year's census form, people were given the chance to voluntarily add a time capsule message, which is set to remain private until 2122. It could be an opportunity to leave a message to future generations or historians.

The census, which took place Sunday, encouraged those filling out the voluntary form to consider what insights descendants might be able to learn about life in 2022 a century from now. Then today's citizens could write anything they wish their descendants (and others) to read.

"Will they feel a strong connection with us, as we do now when we look up the individual census records from 1901 and 1911?" the census website asks.

You can read more in an article by Rina Torchinsky published in the NPR web site at: https://www.npr.org/2022/04/05/1091045484/ireland-irish-census-time-capsule-100-years

I hereby propose we do the same thing in the 2030 U.S. Census.

In March 2022, MyHeritage added 18.1 million historical records in 12 collections from countries across the globe, including Australia, Austria, France, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Switzerland, and Ukraine. With this addition, the total number of historical records on MyHeritage now adds up to 16.9 billion.

You can find more details about each of the collections in the MyHeritage Blog at https://blog.myheritage.com/2022/04/historical-records-added-in-march-2022/.

Without an every-name census index it might be harder to find your people, but it's still possible. Nancy Messier's suggestions for the steps that will make it easier may be found at https://bit.ly/38yZt5j.

This may be of interest to some people, especially those with Vermont ancestry:

Silver Special Collections is pleased to announce the launch of our latest digital collection, Diaries. The collection provides access to more than thirty digitized and transcribed Vermont diaries from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, with three-fourths of the diaries authored by women. Special Collections staff (Ingrid Bower, Erin Doyle, Hannah Johnson, Sharon Thayer) and student employees (Ella Breed, Dorothy Dye, Ibrahim Genzhiyev, Tabitha Ireifej, Mike Malone) transcribed the diaries during the work-from-home portion of the Covid-19 pandemic. The latest Special Collections blog post features five of the women diarists, including Genieve Lamson, Mandana White Goodenough, Mary Kelley, Mary Farnham and Caroline Crane Marsh. In the coming months we will add an additional thirty-plus diaries from Mary Jean Simpson and two diaries that Henry Brownell kept during his time in Japanese-occupied China in the late 1930s.

You can learn more in the University of Vermont web site at: http://library.uvm.edu/news/diaries.

If you own books printed in the Ukrainian language (or Russian or English), you may be interested in this article published in the Internet Archive Blog:

The Internet Archive is requesting donations of Ukrainian books and books useful to Ukrainians. The books will be preserved, digitized and lent (for free to one user at a time) over the Internet. The Internet Archive is prioritizing the digitization and hosting of relevant materials for Ukrainians.

Already the University of Toronto and University of Alberta has sponsored the digitization of sizable Ukrainian collections, where the total collections on archive.org total over 8,000 items in Ukrainian.

But we need much more to support Ukrainians, many of whom are displaced and do not have access to their schools and libraries.

We need your help.  Together we can preserve all published works and make them as widely available as we can.  

The Internet Archive provides free downloading of public domain materials, services for those with print disabilities, free Controlled Digital Lending of books, free interlibrary loan services, free hosting for materials that are uploaded to archive.org, and supports web archiving efforts.  These services can be more relevant to Ukrainians with your help.

Please donate physical books and other materials, upload relevant materials to archive.org, and also consider financial support for our activities.  

The following "help wanted" advertisement was written by the North Carolina Genealogical Society:

The North Carolina Genealogical Society is seeking an Executive Director to support the consistent achievement of the mission, goals and objectives of the Society. The Executive Director has administrative, operational and strategic responsibilities, and must be able to communicate effectively with members, prospective members, volunteers, support staff, board members, and others in the genealogical community.

This is a part-time, work from home position with an expectation of 30-35 hours of work per week. Qualified candidates must demonstrate the ability to set and meet goals and to achieve successful outcomes in a self-directed work environment. A Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of three years of experience in a leadership role in a nonprofit environment and/or professional education or certification in nonprofit management are required. The pay range for this position is $35,000-45,000 per year depending on experience and qualifications.

NCGS was founded in 1974 for the purpose of increasing interest in and raising the standards of genealogy research and compilation, acquainting members with resources, serving as a medium of exchange of information, and promoting the collection, preservation, and utilization of materials of genealogical and historical value. Visit the website, NCGenealogy.org, to learn more about the organization.

The Search Committee will be accepting resumés until 30 April 2022, or until the position is filled. Contact Laurel Sanders, president@ncgenealogy.org, for more information and to apply.

Click here for complete job description.

After researching my family tree for about the past 40 years, I had a great day this weekend. I finally found myself (in the 1950 U.S. Census) records on MyHeritage.

When the census records became available on Friday, April 1, 2022, the first thing I did was look for myself. Lo and behold, there I was in the Penobscot County, Maine records (Enumeration District 10-68). I was listed as a 4-year-old, living with my parents, older brother, and older sister.

Unlike most other census records I have read in years past, the handwriting was exceptionally clear and easy to read, and all the accompanying information seems to be correct as well. Amazing!

I even recognized most of the neighbors listed on the same page. After all, I grew up with most of them.

It was a great feeling seeing myself listed in the census!

Ancestry.com has sent a notice stating that the entire 1950 U.S. census is also now available on the company's servers. Here is the announcement I received from Ancestry.com:

All the images are live on our site! We’ve confirmed that includes the full 6.57 million that NARA reports, plus the 33k from the Indian Schedules and Overseas Islands.

https://www.facebook.com/AncestryUS/posts/10158317313276630

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb3a5lUPcV3/

A quick check shows that MyHeritage is the first company to publish the entire 1950 US Census image collection. You can browse it for FREE now at https://blog.myheritage.com/2022/04/myheritage-publishes-the-1950-u-s-census-search-for-free/.