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Archiver > ADVANCED-RESEARCH > 2007-11 > 1194830239


From: "Ralph Taylor" <>
Subject: Re: [ADVANRES] ancestry census
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2007 18:17:19 -0700
References: <015001c824c3$5ca885f0$0b00a8c0@desktop>
In-Reply-To: <015001c824c3$5ca885f0$0b00a8c0@desktop>


Why on earth, indeed.

Others here have previously commented that transcribing & indexing by
Ancestry is less than perfect. (So I won't belabor it.) The problem is often
compounded by poor handwriting or spelling on the enumerators' part.

Since your target was listed in city directories, he/they seem not hard to
find. It seems unlikely they were consistently missed in census
enumerations.

Is there another way?

Before going to the labor-intensive, line-by-line approach, try searching
the index with all the spelling variants & possible errors you can think of.
Ask yourself "What does Scherrer sound like? How could it be mis-spelled?
How could it be mis-interpreted?"

If you have found the family in city directories, it may be easier to do a
page-by-page or line-by-line reading. Enumerators typically followed an
organized route, rather than hop-scotching willy-nilly all over their
districts; their listings are more organized than they may seem. (The
organization just may not be immediately apparent.) Discerning the pattern
will allow you to skip many pages.

(I'm not sure if those two are what you meant by "the usual".)

You will probably find your Peter Scherrer "hiding in plain sight" under a
poorly-written, &/or mis-spelled, &/or mis-transcribed name.

-rt_/)

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