UNKNOWN individual being added in error to 1911 England & Wales census records

Paul W

I believe this problem has arisen recently, but needs to be addressed. Individuals shown as UNKNOWN are being added to the 1911 E&W census collection records, implying there is an illegible entry on the original page. The problem appears to mainly relate to instances where there is a widowed person in the household, but the example below is an exception.

@SerraNola Can this pleased to passed to an appropriate team for investigation, as this will mean there will be "Unfinished Attachments" appearing in the Sources sections of the other individuals to whom the source is attached? I will try to find further examples.

See https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XSKF-FXMC?lang=en

Áine.ní.Donnghaile

Hi @Paul W

We've been seeing the same for some time in several US censuses. When the unwary attach, a residence is sometimes created for that deceased "unknown," triggering a warning from the DQS about residence after death.

Paul W

I just realised that the UNKNOWN in this example appears to refer to the spouse of the John Charles Cansfield in the record. His wife Hannah is also included in the same record, but their relationship is not shown and there is a thick line between their names. (See link in earlier post.) Whilst this collection appears courtesy of Find My Past, there is no such indexing / transcription of "UNKNOWN" on their website.

Áine.ní.Donnghaile

Here's a thread I posted last month on the issue in the Source Linker group:

https://community.familysearch.org/discussion/182896/just-plain-wrong

Paul W

To clarify the point raised in my original post:

" The problem appears to mainly relate to instances where there is a widowed person in the household"

I believe I am probably mistaken here and the situation arises when an individual is shown as "Married" (not widowed) but where the spouse cannot be identified in the same record (probably working away, separated, or visiting a relative).

Perhaps the adding of the "UNKNOWN" individual is providing a hint that the "missing" spouse needs to be found / identified, but it is still bad practice to add somebody / something that does not appear in the original document.

maryellenstevensbarnes1

Like Paul W says, Another problem is that FS users sometimes create UNKNOWN baby/spouse/etc as a kind of a placeholder or "reservation" to give the unknown a PID number — this makes it extremely difficult for others researching the same family to delete or make and verify changes when the unknown person is finally found.

Adrian Bruce1

Yes - as a general warning to researchers, the recording of second families on a census form can be disastrous. The indexing can go pear-shaped and sometimes even the original text is dubious.

In this example from @Paul W the second family are the Cansfields and all three are (presumably correctly) recorded as visitors to the first family (the Sheards). Strictly, there is nothing to say that the Cansfields are related to each other. They almost certainly are, of course, but that is surely a decision to be left for the Cansfield researcher, not the indexer?

I presume that the indexer(?) or indexing software(?) has created a Persona for John Cansfield's spouse simply because (a) he is married and (b) his spouse is unknown. Weirdly, the same does not apply to Hannah Cansfield, so the invention process only applied to the male.

So it looks like the trigger for this issue is a second family on the form where there is no text to indicate the relation between them and the head of household.

Incidentally, the thicker line is just an artefact of the form being divided into groups of 5 lines.