The first of April the US National Archives (NARA) released the 1950 census using handwriting recognition software. 1950 Census - Home | 1950 Census (archives.gov)
I really wasn't expecting a lot and thought I'd have to wait until the human indexers were finished before really diving into it. To my surprise I had a lot of luck finding most of the people I was looking for. My grandparents, my parents, some of their neighbors and friends, aunts and uncles etc.
There was only one person I was unable to locate in 1950. My maternal great grandmother Roxie Anna Hughes Webb 1876-1961. Various records have her name as Roxy Ann, Roxie, Roxana, Anna and I'm sure there are other variants.
Ancestry.com also had its own handwriting recognition software that was supposed to come out later in the summer. Ancestry® to Apply Handwriting Recognition Artificial Intelligence to Create a Searchable Index of the 1950 U.S. Census | Ancestry Corporate
Instead, Ancestry.com released their version yesterday because as I was looking someone else up, a link to a 1950 census record came up in the results. I re-ran my search for Roxie Anna and she instantly came up. Her name was listed as Rox Anna. She was also listed as a lodger in the household of Sherman Moore and family. I'm not sure if this family is somehow related to her or not.
In 1940 she was living with her daughter Sybil Webb Reasoner and her family. Both households were in Russellville, Pope County, Arkansas.
I can't make out the street name of the Reasoner household in the 1950 census but they still were in Russellville so I can't tell how far they are from each other.
