Census Search in Tennessee
I have been correcting information on families and individuals, and adding sources from our Historical Society. In adding census records, I know where the families were located and the spelling used in enumeration. In spite of this, some records cannot be located through Search feature. I had to go to the census, state, county, page, and add the record myself. (See Daniel L Gann 944Q-K1V as an example.)
I experienced the same issue again and discovered one family member’s residence was transcribed as Michigan rather than Tennessee after again manually adding the record.
The use of AI has made research in Tennessee pretty much impossible. For years I used FS daily for my work. Now it is useless. I am attaching an image. At the bottom is the original location. At the top is current location(s). A returned result will only appear if one searches “Grainger County.” This is not a one off. This is census research in Tennessee. I can give you thousands of examples. This is not an improvement and it is not success. Any suggestions on how to locate records now?
Answers
-
@SerraNola FYI, the placename bugabear.
1 -
@WillcoxME This is a frequent—though irritating—place name error. Automated standardization misclassified "District 2" in the indexed place names, especially in Tennessee's 1880 census records. Our engineering teams are still working to find a fix to collectively resolve these errors, and we welcome reports to better track corrections.
1 -
it’s been an issue for 2 years. How long does it take “to find a fix” for these errors?
Could I get a response to my question? How do we locate records now?
0 -
@WillcoxME Generally, Search can retrieve anything in the dropdown but I see that the Grainger County location has made it's way into the indexing. That means it can be edited, but doesn't solve the overall searching error. To find someone in Grainger County (or any county) use the film number in your search criteria. Grainger County is found on 5162489. You could also just search from the catalog search links for your chosen county. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/koha:1417529
Although this isn't the optimal way to search and doesn't meet FamilySearch engineering standards, it's currently a viable workaround. The place name errors have persisted for far longer than two years, and everyone is looking forward to a solution. While I can't clarify why the fix is so complex, you can know that the engineers recognize your frustration.
2
