Did you know the term "orphan" refers to both full orphans and half-orphans? A full orphan means both parents have died or deserted the child. A half-orphan refers to children with one parent still living. Every year, our Ask Louie genealogy advice service receives many questions on researching orphaned ancestors, and this year is no different. With the release of the 1950 U.S. census, we've been busy updating St. Louis orphanage information on our website. If you are researching an ancestor who was orphaned or half-orphaned in St. Louis and are a member of StLGS, you can access a great deal of information about St. Louis orphans and orphanages on our website.
You can find the section on orphanages by letting your mouse pointer hover over the Research tab on the home page. In the pull-down menu, go to "Institutions" and then "Orphanages." On the Orphanages page, in the grey box on the right side of the screen, click on "Orphanages Census Information." (If you are a member of StLGS, you can go straight to the page here.) You will find an alphabetical list of all known St. Louis orphanages and where to find them in each census. New to this page is the location of all of the orphanages in the 1950 census with the exception of the Salvation Army Home for Children on Marine Avenue. (If you locate the Salvation Army Home in the 1950 census, please contact publicatons@stlgs.org so we can add the data to our website!)
You can search for your ancestor on paid sites such as Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com and on free sites such as FamilySearch and the National Archives. Keep in mind each site currently offers different pieces of the 1950 census. MyHeritage has a searchable index for "Alaska, American Samoa, Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Nevada, New Hampshire, Panama Canal Zone, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virgin Islands, Wyoming, Indian Reservation Schedules, and four overseas islands of Canton, Johnston, Midway, and Wake.” Ancestry.com has some capability to search the 1950 census for free; however, to access the 1950 census district finder, a subscription is required. The only states FamilySearch has available to search at this time are Delaware, New Hampshire, Nevada, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming, according to their website. The National Archives website gives access by name, location, or enumeration district to all states and territories.
The biggest difference for locating some of the orphanages in the 1950 census (compared to previous censuses) is many orphanages are self-contained in their own enumeration district (ED). Not all of the orphanages have their own ED, but many do.
If you search on the Steve Morse Unified Census ED Finder, you will find some of the institutions listed. In the example below, we start with adding Missouri under “State,” then St. Louis under “County,” then St. Louis again under “City or Town.” The next line asks for “House Number” and “Street.” Leave the house number blank and use the down arrow on “Street” to find some institutions listed. Hotels, hospitals, and homes for the elderly are interspersed with the names of streets on the list along with the orphanages. This example shows the Christian Orphans' Home, and in the bottom left, you can see there is just one enumeration district, 96-1321, for this institution. If you are searching for orphans in other locations, this same process should work using the Steve Morse website.
And More . . .
If you are looking for someone in the St. Louis State Mental Hospital in the 1950 census, go to City Sanitarium, ED 96-1479. The enumeration district description narrows the location to “that part of Ward 23 (Tract 13A-part), comprising City Sanitarium in Block 22.” The exact address for City Sanitarium is not listed on the census, but the location was 5400 Arsenal Street. This enumeration is 120 pages listing inmates, attendants, and the resident physician and his family. The St. Louis City Infirmary–Home for Aged, 5600 Arsenal Street, is recorded in ED 96-1480. The enumeration district description here is “that part of Ward 23 (Tract 13A-part), comprising St. Louis city Infirmary in Block 27.” This enumeration includes fifty pages with patients and staff.
For those of you new to this blog, be sure to check out our previous posts on orphans and orphanages in St. Louis:
- June 2018: https://stlgs.blogspot.com/2018/06/house-research-and-orphanage-history.html
- March 2020: https://stlgs.blogspot.com/search?q=orphanages
- October 2020: https://stlgs.blogspot.com/2020/10/looking-for-hard-to-find-genealogy.html
All of the posts refer to Researching Orphans and Orphanage Care in St. Louis, a publication from St. Louis Genealogical Society, which we sell in both book format and as a PDF download. After an introductory chapter on general information about orphanages in St. Louis, the book contains three chapters organized by religious affiliation. The last section is an extensive bibliography. If you had ancestors in St. Louis who received orphanage care, you will want this definitive work in your collection. Purchase your copy in our secure store, but be sure to log in first if you are a society member, to get your discount coupon.
(Many thanks to Viki Fagyal for writing this week's blog and for updating the census information for orphanages on our website.)
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