ALT-GENEALOGY-L Archives
Archiver > ALT-GENEALOGY > 2002-11 > 1036622790
From: (Gordon Johnson)
Subject: Re: Familysearch.org swamped again after 1880/1881 Census data put online.
Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 22:46:30 GMT
References: <80c5321d.0211011625.34e9e48f@posting.google.com> <3dc40cee@212.67.96.135> <3dc5511f.14360259@news.ifb.co.uk> <3DC80EEA.9F6ED1FC@erols.com>
On Tue, 05 Nov 2002 13:33:14 -0500, Singhals <>
wrote:
>Gordon Johnson wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2002 17:43:11 -0000, "Chrisp93" <>
>> wrote:
>>
>
>> >tertiary source. (Enumerator's notebook being the first, enumerator's
>> >handwritten transcription being the second, and the typed transcription
>> >being the third - reminds me of the childhood game of Chinese whispers,
>> >actually!) :-)
>> ** And what about the original census schedule being filled in by the
>> head of the household?
>
>In the US, that's a very recent development ... post
>World-War II, if memory serves. Prior to that, our
>enumerators made personal visits to each household and asked
>questions, generally writing the answers on pieces of paper
>himself.
>
>Cheryl
** I was aware of that, Cheryl. Just mentioned it as we had these
schedules very early on in the UK, though these were usually dumped
once the enumeration bopoks were filled in from the returned
schedules. It means that for the UK there was another layer of
possible transcription error.
I yetserday looked at one 1881 census record for my wife's family
line, and the middle initial for one of the children is transcribed as
N, when we know positively that it was H. Just shows how easy it is
for census data to end up wrong!
Gordon.
KinHelp - Scottish Historical & Genealogical Services
Website: http://www.web-ecosse.com/genes/genes2.htm
Pre-1700 is our speciality.
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