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What to do with the field regarding income?

ClaudiaMoore6
ClaudiaMoore6 ✭
April 11, 2022 in 1950 US Census

Should we ignore the amount of money that has been crossed through with a line, and report the smaller number usually written above? E.g., originally the income might be "5200" but it has been crossed out and replaced with "52".

The automated transcription usually picks up the original amount, and I am not certain what to do: replace with the shortened amount, or leave as is.

3

Answers

  • Sarah Mae Fisher
    Sarah Mae Fisher ✭
    April 11, 2022

    I have been placing the original amount because the header on that column asks for a yearly amount. I do not have an answer, just what I have been doing and if I am wrong, I am sure someone will pick it up.

    1
  • CaptBob
    CaptBob ✭✭✭
    April 11, 2022

    Another good example for reducing or eliminating indexing or verifying items NOT needed to locate a Census source (e.g. name, birth, age, place, relationships, etc.) Has anyone done a search for 'salary' or income or home value . . . . To find a record.

    The primary purpose of an index is to find a person in a record (source)

    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/121574/family-review-is-entirely-too-detailed-time-consuming#latest

    1
  • Siteng6
    Siteng6 ✭
    April 11, 2022

    Keeping the original number would be better because the original number is at unit of 1 and the new number is at unit of 100. Since we are indexing the income in terms of dollars, we should keep the original number.

    The handwriting recognition model was also designed to transcribe the original one.

    2
  • ClaudiaMoore6
    ClaudiaMoore6 ✭
    April 12, 2022
    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/443132#Comment_443132

    I really enjoy/enjoyed doing the Family Review--it gives a "feeling" for the people--but I agree with CaptBob that there are entirely too many unnecessary fields to index. The result for me as a volunteer is to get worn out on tedium, when instead I could stay energized much longer and complete so many more records if the task were reduced to the really important fields.

    4
  • brendareneesegeberg1
    brendareneesegeberg1 ✭
    April 12, 2022

    I've ran into this and have been keeping the original amount. If a person wants to know about their family, they can look up the information on the census record and see what the census taker wrote in. Our job is to write/edit what we see. Don't stress over the little stuff.

    1
  • dontiknowyou
    dontiknowyou ✭✭✭✭✭
    April 13, 2022

    There may be a contractual reason why we are indexing the household economic data in addition to the usual census data.

    0
  • ClaudiaMoore6
    ClaudiaMoore6 ✭
    April 13, 2022
    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/443542#Comment_443542

    Interesting point that I had not considered.

    1
  • Janell Vasquez
    Janell Vasquez ✭✭✭
    April 13, 2022

    I agree with leaving it at the original amount. The smaller amount generally seems to be the same number with the last two digits removed, and it seems to have been done later by those processing the form.

    1
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