NY-WESTERN-L Archives

Archiver > NY-WESTERN > 2007-07 > 1184937963


From: "Carol A March" <>
Subject: Re: [NY-WESTERN] Census
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:26:03 -0400
In-Reply-To: <048601c7cac5$84ec3870$c9054b18@lassie>


I have definitely found this problem myself. I easily found a different
family on the 1870 census a few years back then just tried to look at it
again using ancestry.com. Imagine my disbelief when none of their names
came up in a search! I finally just browsed that particular town and saw
them again, and realized that the last name could be interpreted as
quite a few other things to someone who did not know who they were. I
have decided to browse the census for my grandparents, starting with the
ward/district where my grandfather was in 1920 and fanning out from
there. (Please let him be there and not Chicago!)

-Carol


-----Original Message-----
From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of Linda Schmidt
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 7:19 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [NY-WESTERN] Census


>>Also, I have found A LOT of misspellings of surnames<

Yes, that definitely is a factor - although we cannot blame only the
census takers - because as people are transcribing these records, they
can mis-read a name and spell it differently also. Not to point fingers
at anyone! But, between the handwriting of that time period and whether
the name was spelled right/wrong to begin with, it can often become much
different from the original. And of course you need to figure in the
fact that people wrote what they "heard" and spelled accordingly,
whether it was someone's name, a place, or a common word. Often you can
find names and/or words spelled differently within the same document.
Linda


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