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Archiver > TMG > 2011-01 > 1294847617


From: Terry Reigel <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] "Conclusions"
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:53:37 -0500
In-Reply-To: <001601cbb26e$b41da720$1c58f560$@net>


Teresa Elliott wrote:
> Terry, often times the transcription on Ancestry is
> exactly as I see it as well, it's just not a common
> spelling of the name. For instance, my Lannom family is
> often transcribed as Lannon. When you look at the film,
> it's hard to tell if that last letter is an N or a M.
> Because I know the name is Lannom, I'd see an M, but if
> you looked at it, you'd say no it is an N. So the
> transcription is what the name looks like, just not the
> common spelling of the name.

Yes, that's my point. The "common spelling" has no place in the recording of the census record, in my view. When creating a citation, enter what the record says, as best you can read it. If you think the indexer read it wrong, correct that online. If you are entering the record as a citation for a name, state what it says as you see it in the CD. But there is no need, in my view, to enter a name mis-spelled by the enumerator either as a Name Variation or in the Memo. Nor is there a need to enter a transcription error in either place, at least for Ancestry. I might re-think if I used another source which doesn't allow for users to correct mis-transcriptions, as I think is the case with Heritage Quest.

On the other hand, if one makes a practice of using the Census tag to record a transcription of the census record, one might follow different principles. I don't do that because I think source details belong in citations, not in the tags themselves, but different users have different views on that.

Terry Reigel

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