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Archiver > UK-CENSUS-HELPERS > 2005-05 > 1117119114


From: "duncan malcolm" <>
Subject: Re: [UK-CENSUS] Impossible to read!
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 15:51:54 +0100
References: <000c01c56194$51a5ed90$8200a8c0@Barb> <0ee501c561ab$cb1e7540$8e924154@user8aefylt54k> <002701c561b5$e39a9220$817ba8c0@Sauron> <000701c561dc$814c7c60$dbc8fea9@default>


Bill,

1841 Census Fiche received today.

Will be in touch re. progress

Duncan


----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill McKinlay" <>
To: <>
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2005 11:20 AM
Subject: Re: [UK-CENSUS] Impossible to read!


> Hi Diane,
>
> Sooner or later we all get the very good and the very difficult
> pieces to deal with. If you are using spreadsheets for input, the
> techniques I use are:
>
> 1. Start on the next ED then set aside a little time in each
> transcribing session to work on one or two of the difficult
> schedules. (Just insert the required number of lines) This saves
> the sanity as well as the eyesight - at least you feel happier
> that you are still making progress.
> 2. Schedule numbers, even if they are difficult to read at least
> are identifiable by the line they are on and you get an
> indication of what you are probably looking at by the last
> readable one.
> 3. Fill in the gender first. Even if the numbers are unreadable,
> you can usually tell which column they were written in. Knowing
> too whether the person is a male or female is a big help to
> determine if the forename is a Jane or a James.
> 4. Fill out as much of the rest that you can readily make out
> next. The family structure starts to become apparent - Head,
> wife, children... is it Scholar on the occupation column of a
> child for instance? Is what you can make out consistant with what
> you are likely to find?
> 5. Try and sort out the dittos in the surname column so you are
> not spending time on those and focusing on the first entry. Put
> in what you can make out of that, it may not be perfect but it
> may be close enough for it to be picked up by a phonetic search
> and is a big help to those who follow.
> 6. Use hyphens or other defaults as required for the totally
> illegible entries and flag the whole lot as uncertain.
> 7. Send a sympathy card to the checker and validator.
>
> On one occasion it took me a month to do 14 pages but I got a
> heck of a lot more done over the same period as well.
>
> Good luck.
> Bill
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Diane" <>
> To: <>
> Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2005 5:43 PM
> Subject: Re: [UK-CENSUS] Impossible to read!
>
>
> | I have a whole bunch of pages that are so faded that I can't
> make out most of it. Does anyone have any suggestions or hints
> that may help? Most of the given names you can figure out
> eventually, but surnames are another story.
> |
> | And if there is nothing I can do... what do I enter?
> |
> | Diane (going blind in BC)
> |
> |
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