Field 13B is defined as leave blank but is often filled in and trnscribed.
As I go through pages this field is typically filled in if the person was born in a state other than the one this page of the 1950 Census was for. In most cases it is automatically transcribed with the first character being the letter "O" but the document usually looks like the number '0". For foreign countries it seems to be a letter. What is the rule for handling this? Leave the letter "O" or change it to zero?
It also seems that the next two characters translate to a specific state code. Do you know what this code stands for?
Best Answer
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@Vincent Nofi, I appreciate your perception. I have received a definitive answer. It is a great question. I know people are seeing this a lot. That is a number code in that field, so the first digit is a zero and they should change the letter "O" to a zero.
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@Vincent Nofi, please leave it as it is when you see this. If it is the ending letter of the state they were born in, such as Mexico, once in a while the enumerator wrote Mexico and the "o" went into that space and the computer transcribed it as "o". If that is the case, just put a blank for that field. We hope that this helps. Keep up the great work!
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Are you saying ignore whatever is put in the field as part of the computerized transcription? There aren't that many states that end in O that would cause an O to be transcribed so often. It would be nice to know exactly what the census people put in that field so we could make it correctly reflect what was in the census.
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Found this; I hope it helps
https://www.startresearching.com/blog/revealing-codes-in-the-1950-census-pt-2-leave-blank-b-amp-c
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So fun to know! Thank you!!
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