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Betty Frain's Census

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This, and other suggestions for recording census citations, provide quite formal references to census data. But to what extent is this detail necessary?

 

The purpose of a source record and a citation is to make it clear where your information came from, and to make it easy for others to verify the source you used.

 

Census records have become easy to access, through the internet, at national archives, and through the LDS Family History Library and Centers. Which repository you used is really not important, and someone wanting to verify your data will choose whichever one is best for them.

 

Each census archive has developed their own method of indexing the census pages. The only real information a reader needs is that archive's index references to the page (not the individuals on the page). That data can be used to find the document image in any repository.

 

With the on-line census data bases, I have been able to get many census images and found out a lot about my distant relatives. I spend my time updating my genealogy data, and keep my source references informal and simple - just a footnote on the census tag and references to the census where I have derived other information (such as birth date/place, names, etc., e.g. "Age 40 on 1880 census"). In the census tag, I not only link all members of the household to appropriate roles in the tag, but I also include index entries in the memo fields, which will be used to create a document index with the journal report eventually gets to a word processor. So either on the computer or in a printed journal report I can find the census description for any data field that census record provided. I also note any significant errors I think are in the census itself or in the indexing by an only repository, e.g. Ancestry.

 

I know this is not up to the standards of Elizabeth Shown Mills and others, but I think the important thing is to include the information others would need to find the document I used. I would be interested in what problems others might find with my technique.

 

Pierce

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Pierce,

 

I think most of what Betty sources comes from using UFT where that much data was part of the source citation. I just use the page number now. I don't use the family number or dwelling number anymore.

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Please correct me if I'm wrong but here is my understanding of what will happen in Betty's instructions:

 

I set up a name tag for the 1910 census. I then go to the 1910 census event and change the sentence structure for a role in the 1910 census (for example head of household) to use the new name tag I created. Now when I print out a journal report, it will print the head of households name as "Walter L. Penn (given age 41)".

 

If this is correct, what happens to the other 20,000 people in my data base when I print this 1910 census entry? Since it is looking for my new name tag in this sentence and they don't have that name tag..what will it print? A blank? Unknown?

 

I really, really like her suggestions but I sure don't want to redo every tag in my database.

 

Please advise.

 

RA Sonnier

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R. A.

 

All tags have the primary name attached to them. Until you change the name on the tag, that is what will print. So until you change it to the new 1910 census name, it will print the primary name of that person.

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If this is correct, what happens to the other 20,000 people in my data base when I print this 1910 census entry? Since it is looking for my new name tag in this sentence and they don't have that name tag..what will it print?

It's not looking for a new name, but looking for the name specified for the tag. By default, all tags use the primary name.

 

Only when you select a different name will that name be used in the tag. The Sentence doesn't care which name is selected for the tag - it uses whatever name is specified in the upper right corner of the Tag Entry screen for Principals, or on the Witness screen for Witnesses.

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I tried to look at the more detailed on your Rutherford Cemetery website and get this...

 

The requested URL /~rutherfordcemetery/1820tmg_census.htm was not found on this server.

 

 

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