Quirky Census takers
I have some situations where I am having trouble following the major rule of transcription, type what you see, do not correct spellings to what you "think" it should be.
The first is a census taker that can't spell James. I did several pages where the Street name clearly said Jamse. I didn't google it at the time, because it was so clearly written, but it should have been James Street. I didn't google to it until I came across several people have a first name of Jamse, same area. Do I leave it as Jamse? Transcribe it as both Jamse and James? If it has already been transcribed as James already, do I add the Jamse?
Second census taker abbreviates the surname the second time it appears on the page. I am well aware that the spelling of the surname can differ between siblings, so I do not usually consider it a problem if brothers spell their surname differently or if there are are similar names with a small variation in nmes. But over and over again this one census taker makes an abbreviation if the same surname appears further down the page. Example there will be a surname of SLAGH and further down the page there will be a surname of SLGH. Do I transcribe SLGH as both SLGH SLAGH or just follow the golden rule, type what you see? I typically don't process these pages because the name transcription on these pages tries to make sense out of these cryptic abreviations. Fortunately there are not too many places where the surname is written out twice on a single sheet, but it is a problem in the area I am doing.
And lastly there have census taker been spelling errors on my own family, example the name clearly says "PEIPER" when it should say "PIEPER". The street, children, spouse and occupation clearly make it my relative, do I leave it as Peiper?
Comments
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@vickyg2003 Unfortunately, while we are reviewing, we must type what the census taker wrote. However, when the records are published, we will be able to make the needed corrections. The difference is that we will then be able to add explanatory notes so that those who come after us will know why we made the corrections.
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