Classic transcription error "Wdw" (widow) on census transcribed as "William"
Where do I report a volunteer's transcription error on censuses? It is causing the deceased to appear as living at the census date. "Wdw Zephirin Folse, female." The widow of an ancestor who died circa 1837 is recorded correctly on 1840, 1850, and 1860 censuses and slave schedules as the head of household. The census taker entered her name as the widow of her husband, writing "Wdw" before her husband's name ("Wdw Zephirin Folse"), and recorded female for the sex. All of this is fine. Fast forward 180 years to the problem: A volunteer transcribed this census info incorrectly. They assumed "Wdw" was an abbreviation for William and entered the name of the person as William Zephirin Folse. Family trees all over the internet have Zephirin Folse listed as still alive in 1840, 1850, and 1860 because of this. But he was deceased and his strong and capable widow was taking care of the family business and affairs. Can we please correct this and give her the credit and return him back to the grave?
Best Answer
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The only instance of anything like this transcription error that I can get FamilySearch to cough up is the 1860 slave schedule's index, which is not editable; it says "Wm Zephinn Folse". The 1860 and 1850 census indexes have both already been corrected: "Widow Zepherin Folse" and "Widow Ziphirin Folse". I cannot find her in 1840. (Nobody else can, either, as far as I can tell.)
None of the records I found are attached to FamilySearch's Family Tree. (Is this him? https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/M5PP-LNK) Perhaps attaching all of the sources and making sure the FamilySearch tree is as fully correct as possible will help the correct information to propagate to all of the other online trees. Make sure to include the 1860 slave schedule among Maria Eugenie's sources, with a note about the correction in either the citation's "reason to attach" box or its Notes field (or both).
(It looks like he's correct on WikiTree: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Folse-303, although Marie Eugenie is missing the 1860 census. Adding it there, too, with a note about the incorrect index on the slave schedule, may help reduce the incidence of incorrect death dates for Zephirin.)
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Can you please provide the URL (web address) where you see the record?
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