Discrepancy between indexing field and census column
I've been indexing census records from Calvados, France, and have run into a problem with one batch. The Family Search field is labeled "relation to head of household" (relation avec le chef de ménage), whereas on this batch, the column on the census is labeled "profession or trade". Occasionally the French census taker has added the relationship, but most of the time just the profession (weaver, wet nurse, farmer for woman, shepherd, carpenter, blacksmith for men etc.). The first-mentioned person for each household certainly "appears" to be the head of household, and sometimes but not always I can deduce the relationship, but of course guessing is not the goal here. I'm not quite sure what to do...
Answers
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It is odd because on the first example they show to index Domestique as the relationship to the head of household. But, the field help says "Index relationships only if they were recorded. Do not index professions." I would say to use your best judgement, without guessing. Or type in the profession, since Domestique is a profession.
The also index Leur Fils and Leur Fille - So odd that they are asking you to index Leur (Their) and not just Fil or Fille...
Based on that, I would probably type what I saw!
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Thanks for your reply Melissa. I have included domestics and live-in wet nurses, as those are a form of relationship to the head of household, as well as journeymen when the last name is different, but it gets trickier when there is a female weaver or a male blacksmith with a different last name. Hard to know if it's a daughter- or son-in-law or an unrelated employee. I guess that's when I should leave the field blank.
By the way, after thinking about it, I think the "leur" (their), is actually pretty clever, because it means it would refer to the son or daughter of the couple, as opposed to "sa/son" (his), which also shows up occasionally, and which would mean the son or daughter of the head of household but not the spouse. I actually found myself wishing Indiana and Kentucky had done the same, it sure would have helped to clarify a few messy situations in my own family history ! 😅
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