Census occupations missing
As of some "update" a couple of weeks ago, occupations are no longer showing in census transcriptions. This affects at least the England & Wales census transcriptions for 1851, 1861, 1881, and 1891. Those for 1871, 1901 and 1911 still retain them (or at least some). I've checked a random sample of people from my tree in several different areas, people for whom I've previously recorded an occupation, so I know it was in the transcription! No notice, no explanation, just vanished. Anyone know anything about this? Is it permanent? or just some over-eager web interface designer shoving out some new (probably unnecessary) code without properly testing it?
Answers
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I've just looked at the underlying JSON data for this 1891 census record: /ark:/61903/1:1:4264-WPZ.
While the occupation (Police Constable) is absent from the display it still shows in the data:
… "facts" : [ { "type" : "http://gedcomx.org/Occupation", "value" : "Police Constable", …
The corresponding 1911 entry shows the occupation both in the data and on the screen.
So this sounds to me like a user interface problem only.
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Thanks Mandy! So yes, it looks like some display update has caused the field to become invisible in the interface… I do wish web developers would stop mucking around like that, online auction sites are another one where they can't just leave alone!
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There have been many issues with the E&W census collections over the years. FamilySearch has responded by suggesting that Find My Past formats / updates the records and they just publish them in the way they are sent across to them. Find My Past has taken a different view, saying certain matters (such as the loss for a number of years of millions of records from the 1871 collection) is due to no action on their part.
From viewing https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/list?ec=region%3AEngland%2CplaceId%3A1986340%2Cregion%3AUnited%20Kingdom%20and%20Ireland&fcs=placeId%3A1986340&offset=0 it appears all collections - except for 1901 & 1911 - were updated in June (2024). Unfortunately, these updates appear to have led to a "downgrade "in the data contained in the past, and the latest exercise appears to follow that pattern. You will have difficulty in getting a definitive explanation on this and can only hope that this particular issue can be put right, either before or at the time of the next update.
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Thanks for the answers!
How do I view the underlying JSON data (not that I can do it for every record until they fix the bug) but it would be useful to be able to check for some key individuals.
Thanks,
Dave
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https://www.familysearch.org/platform/records/personas/<id> will give you the underlying data for /ark:/61903/1:1:<id>.
Hit the JSON button to make it easier to read.
Doesn't work for all 1:1: records though (not sure why).
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Wow, thanks, I never knew that! Amazing what's hidden away isn't it?
Incidentally, it doesn't work for this person in 1861:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M7R4-TRX
https://www.familysearch.org/platform/records/personas/M7R4-TRX…gives me "401 Unauthorized - Failure in upstream call: FailureToGetPersona (upstream 401)"
However, the same person in 1851:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SGFS-ZZL
https://www.familysearch.org/platform/records/personas/SGFS-ZZL…does indeed give me the raw data (albeit with no occupation, as he's only 10 at the time).
I wonder whether the 1861 failure is to do with the fact the record is unattached to a tree, but the 1851 record is? Anyway, I've learnt something very useful, many thanks!
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It appears to fail on the ones showing 'Image Unavailable' and to succeed on all others I have tested (whether or not the record is attached to the Family Tree).
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@MandyShaw1 Thanks for this enlightenment. I used it to examine the place name data for a record in the 1851 E&W Census. It revealed that the data presented in the 'Event Place' was sourced from EVENT_PLACE_ORIG and that was wrong, it had been replaced with the County and Country. If the three items EVENT_DISTRICT_ORIG, EVENT_COUNTY_ORIG and EVENT_COUNTRY_ORIG are concatenated, it would be better, because it would at least reveal the District. Now I want to try to discover what update caused the place to get destroyed in the original. It is also strange that the entity EVENT_TOWN_ORIG is not present at all.
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