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Oh JC that was quite a short reply......am impressed!

Janey - whilst I agree with your main point, I must take exception to your treating the census ref as bumph.

Take the last bit (1911) you tossed out:
Piece reference RG 14/223
Registration Sub-District: North Hammersmith Civil Parish, Township or Place: Hammersmith (part) RD 3 RS 1 ED 27

That was the NA lookup - maybe the ref is duplicated in the text, but it really helps in free advanced searches at:
http://www.1911census.co.uk/

If I've found Hellie Rowett in Fulham, and know Fulham is RD3.
Then I can just enter her, and the census ref=rd3, and find out who she's living with.
I can enter Rowett, and "ref=rd3 sd1" and see there's no Rowett's in North Hammersmith apart from this family,
although ref=rd3 yields a 5 y.old Rowett living elsewhere in Fulham RD.


Aside from the use in searches, another reason for not omitting this info is the quality of Ancestry's transcriptions.
Say I've only got an FMP or GR sub, and someone asks "What's Harriet's pob?" in this 1871:


1871 England Census
Civil Parish: Long Benton
Ecclesiastical parish: Walker
County/Island: Northumberland
Country: England
Street address: Old Shops
Registration district: Tynemouth
Sub registration district: Longbenton
ED, institution, or vessel: 7
Household schedule number: 8

George Hierlaway 40 Northd, Heaton Head M Coal Miner
Margaret Hierlaway 30 Gateshead, Durham, England Wife M Coal Miners Wife
Harriet M Hierlaway 1 Northd, Walker Daughter

Source Citation: Class: RG10; Piece: 5125; Folio: 4; Page: 2; GSU roll: 847398.


Well, you'ld have bother finding them without the "bumphy" ref, as FMP transcribes them correctly:

RG10/5125 4 2 THIRLAWAY, George Tynemouth VIEW VIEW
RG10/5125 4 2 THIRLAWAY, Margaret Tynemouth VIEW VIEW
RG10/5125 4 2 THIRLAWAY, Harriet M Tynemouth VIEW VIEW



Here's JC's first example type pre the over-bumphing treatment:


Piece: SCT1851/169 Place: Aberdour -Aberdeenshire Enumeration District: 3
Civil Parish: Aberdour Ecclesiastical Parish, Village or Island: Detached Portion
Folio: 182 Page: 2 Schedule: 11
Address: Auchentum
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surname First name(s) Rel Status Sex Age Occupation Where Born Remarks
MILNE James Head M M 64 Farmer Of 70 Acres Aberdeenshire - Pitsligo Employing 7 servants
MILNE Anna Wife M F 62 Farmer's Wife Aberdeenshire - Pitsligo
etc


FreeCEN hasn't done Aberdour in 1861, but no chance of finding them there at Ancestry even though they don't move:

1861 Scotland Census
Registration Number: 169
Registration district: Aberlour
Civil parish: Aberlour
County: Aberdeenshire
Address: Auchentumb
Occupation: Farmer Acres Uk
ED: 3
Household schedule number: 3

James Milne 74
Anna Milne 72
etc


Here's another example where the parish # is useful.

Piece: SCT1861/166 Place: St Fergus -Banffshire Enumeration District: 4
Civil Parish: St. Fergus Ecclesiastical Parish, Village or Island: -
Folio: 0 Page: 6 Schedule: 22
Address: Hon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surname First name(s) Rel Status Sex Age Occupation Where Born Remarks
SCOTT Alexander Head M M 43 Ploughman Aberdeenshire - Crimond
SCOTT Sophia Wife M F 40 Banffshire - St Fergus
SCOTT Mary Daur - F 11 Scholar Banffshire - St Fergus
SCOTT George Son - M 8 Scholar Banffshire - St Fergus
SCOTT Elizabeth Daur - F 3 Scholar Aberdeenshire - Crimond
SCOTT Adam Son - M 1 Banffshire - St Fergus


So how do I enter the parish name at Ancestry- is it St or St. or Saint Fergus.
(The first 2 work - the last doesn't) - of course, it's always easier to enter the parish # instead of the name in an Ancestry search.)


Another advantage of knowing the parish # is that it's incorporated into the IGI's batch # for C of S and GROS index extracts, so I know (outside of the big cities) the batch # for Adam will be c11.166.1 with dots omitted.
Sim, since Cruden is parish 184, Liz is in c111841. (The last digit is 1 or 3 for GROS index extracts 1855-1875ish).
Their marr is m111664, but the older 3 kids are submitted - they would have been c111664.

Janey - also don't be leaving pilot's "Source Film Number" out - sometimes it's the only way to determine which church the event took place in, or whether the extract is from the parish register or the Bishop's transcripts so I know which page 57 I want - oh - you've taken that out too - tut, tut.

Yeah, but anybody who wants to can do the ****ed search themselves for free at pilot.familysearch and get all the fine details. The info copied from there doesn't actually tell anybody anything, i.e. what church, unless that's spelled out. A file number doesn't. So I don't see much point in pasting it all out in a post here.

The example I gave was my gr-grf's brother's daughter. Why would I want to know what the film number was? If I'm so eager I want to track down the church or whatever, surely I can put myself out to do the search myself in the first place.


"Take the last bit (1911) you tossed out:
Piece reference RG 14/223
Registration Sub-District: North Hammersmith Civil Parish, Township or Place: Hammersmith (part) RD 3 RS 1 ED 27
That was the NA lookup - maybe the ref is duplicated in the text, but it really helps in free advanced searches at:
http://www.1911census.co.uk/"

Have we ever known a poster here who was going to go do an advanced search using the census reference info? And - search for what?


"If I've found Hellie Rowett in Fulham, and know Fulham is RD3.
Then I can just enter her, and the census ref=rd3, and find out who she's living with.
I can enter Rowett, and "ref=rd3 sd1" and see there's no Rowett's in North Hammersmith apart from this family,
although ref=rd3 yields a 5 y.old Rowett living elsewhere in Fulham RD."

And I can put in Rowett living with Hellie Rowett in Fulham and get the same result. Or just search for Rowett in Fulham to see who else there is.

Again, these are replies to people for whom one is doing the searches they could really do themselves. The paid searches do get them more details than the free searches they can do without paying, but the important bits there are the places of birth and occupations and time married and so on. They're already being given that. What do they want with all that detail?


"So how do I enter the parish name at Ancestry- is it St or St. or Saint Fergus."

Well, I just put Fergus, myself, and check the results.


mgnv, I'm sure all this fascinates you, just like all the complicated ways of "drilling down" at collectionscanada for this or that, but I haven't encountered a poster here yet who would even understand what you're saying here, let alone need any of it!

I agree with mgnv about the reference data

I put all reference data as part of my source in my tree so pass it on. After all what is the point of having a lookup if you don't have the reference to the source of the data?

The source of the data is the census ...

I guess if someone asks for "a lookup", they may want all that. I remain convinced that 99.99% of the people here who ask for help are not interested. They just want help sorting something out or finding an unfindable person. If they were that interested in the minutiae, they'd subscribe to a service themselves ...


These minutiae apart, my main point was about the entirely useless bumph -- the blank fields in census records and baptism/marriage records (employment? race?), the dotted lines, the pointless empty space, the incorrectly divided lines of text, the boilerplate notices on submitted/extracted records, the "to do blah blah click here", the headings from websites, the "save this record" ...................................

Sorry but I have to agree with Janey on this.
If people want reference numbers attached to their look-ups then all they have to do is ask but the majority aren't interested. All they want is the information about where the person is, their birth place, have they married, how many children do they have etc. etc. If you try to direct OP's to a census by just using the reference 99.9% of them don't understand what the numbers refer to.
It's not difficult to assess whether the OP has knowledge of the system or not when they post a query and i think most of us are very good at judging what is needed and will give accordingly. I will continue to remove what I consider to be unwanted information and if the poster requires any further information then all they have to do is ask. But I think in all of my time here I have only ever had 2 requests for reference numbers and one of those was today when the census record I had posted couldn't be found by the OP. But they were looking at the wrong year anyway?

Janey -

Re search 1911 with census ref=rd3
"And I can put in Rowett living with Hellie Rowett in Fulham and get the same result"
Well no - it's not the same result - your way would leave out Jack George (the father-in-law)
The whole point of using ref=rd3 is that it's one of the 3 required fields, so once I've specified that I don't have to specify it's a Rowett living with Hellie.

Re "Have we ever known a poster here who was going to go do an advanced search using the census reference info? And - search for what?"
Well, I guess it's now no surprise that you do know at least one.
I did over 200 such searches prior to getting very limited free time on FMP during England's world cup run. That allowed me to see the families beforehand, so I knew which I wanted.

Re Fergus - dumb of me not to have tried that. I'd just spent 2 hrs looking up Quebec census sub-districts on google maps, and I'd gotten into a narrow mindset as they all seem to be St Someone (slight exaggeration - there's sometimes Ste Someone).

Re: "What do they want with all that detail?"
Basically, it helps them find the image or whatever.
Whilst there are sometimes interesting details on censuses, like:
How many grain silos on farm? How much (fulled/unfulled) cloth woven? How much smoked haddock cured?
(well, they'ld interest me for my family) - I wouldn't dream of posting them, but I would post the means for them to find out for themselves.



Lets look at an example from another thread you posted on. Here's a fragment of Janey's post on:
http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.asp?wci=thread&tk=1241678

"She is in the 1880 census (free access at Ancestry) with her husband David Pearson and children. I don't know why, but there are two records for the household, with slightly different birthdates for David, 1846 and 1848. I can't see the images with unpaid access."


One of the hits in question is (from the LDS site):

1880 Household:
Name Relation Marital Status Gender Race Age Birthplace Occupation Father's Birthplace Mother's Birthplace
David PEARSON Self M Male W 34 SCOT Butcher SCOT SCOT
Mary PEARSON Wife M Female W 24 MO Keeping House ENG IRE
Thomas PEARSON Son S Male W 4 MO SCOT MO
Alice PEARSON Dau S Female W 3 MO SCOT MO
David PEARSON Other S Male W 6M MO SCOT MO
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source Information:
Census Place St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
Family History Library Film 1254731
NA Film Number T9-0731
St. Louis Enumeration Second Enumeration
Page Number 510C

[Ancestry gives:
Source Citation: Year: 1880; Census Place: Saint Louis, Saint Louis, Missouri; Roll 731; Family History Film: 1254731; Page: 510C; Enumeration District: 230; Image: 0021.]


Now a look up at:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=us%201880%20census%20missouri

gets this hit:
10th Population Census of the United States - 1880
This microfilm was provided by the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana etc


and drilling down, we find the hit for the "NA Film Number T9-0731", namely:

10th census of population, 1880, Missouri [microform] (Volume Reel 0731 - 1880 Missouri Federal Population Census Schedules - City of St. Louis (second enumeration), ward 12 (cont'd: ED 229, sheet 8-ED 247, sheet 17)) etc


and then it's just a question of finding "Page Number 510C" on page 22 of this pdf to see the image.

[The image just gives the extra marginal info they're on Biddle Street on 9/11/1880]

As an aside, Janey's other transcription was for a first enumeration taken of Gamble Street on 9/6/1880.
I've no idea why they're doing 2 enumerations.



There are several censuses online that aren't well indexed on-site.
The above URL is easily modified to yield US census images 1790-1930 excl 1890, but there's thousands of images there. To see the one you want, you need to find it.
There's a similar problem with Canadian censuses at LAC - they have 6 of the 9 censuses 1851-1916 online, but 4 of those 6 aren't nicely indexed on-site.



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The de-bumphed 1871 Hierlaway/Thirlaway census I posted earlier was taken from my notes/file for a post that I intended, but never made (wrong family). so it can be seen that, these "minutiae" aside, I do agree with Janey's main point.

And on that main point, whew, have I seen a few posts today and wished the posters would consider the suggestion in this thread.

In one, a simple baptism record from the IGI took up my entire monitor, top to bottom, and still ran over.

All it needs to say is

name
date
place
father
mother
batch number (if any), or a parenthetical comment "(submitted record)" if not.

No huge white spaces, no dotted lines between huge white spaces, no boilerplate bumph about the IGI or extracted/submitted records, no blank fields.

It really is tiresome having to plough through this sloppy stuff.

I'm going to give this a bump just because I've read a few posts in the last hour with an incredible amount of bumph in them, and/or with pointlessly spaced out info, C&P of transcriptions from various records - censuses, baptism records - and I live in hope that some more posters may agree with me ...

It's so easy to delete the dotted lines and blank spaces and the empty fields in records and the pointless notices from sites where records are copied from, and to join up lines of info that are needlessly separated onto two or three lines.

Patricia, if you're reading -- I just cottoned on to what you were saying about having your census results increased in size because they were difficult to read. I agree! I wonder whether it's because you copy from Ancestry into some other thing first? Mine come out like that when I copy into Gmail in IE.

Yes, found one:


1891 Wales Census
David M Richard Age: 14 Estimated birth year: abt 1877 Relation: Son Father's Name: Evan Richard Mother's Name: Margt Richard Gender: Male Where born: B Festiniog, Merionethshire, Wales Civil parish: Ffestiniog Ecclesiastical parish: St David Town: Ffestiniog County/Island: Merionethshire Country: Wales
Registration district: Festiniog Sub-registration district: Festiniog
ED, institution, or vessel: 5a
Evan Richard 42
Margt Richard 35
David M Richard 14
John Richard 11
Maggie Richard 8
Winifred Richard 5
Jane Richard 2
Source Citation: Class: RG12; Piece: 4646; Folio 65; Page 15; GSU roll: 6099756.


That really is very difficult to follow. You need to hit Enter at the end of each of those items, like so:

1891 Wales Census
David M Richard Age: 14
Estimated birth year: abt 1877
Relation: Son
Father's Name: Evan Richard
Mother's Name: Margt Richard
Gender: Male
Where born: B Festiniog, Merionethshire, Wales

Civil parish: Ffestiniog
Ecclesiastical parish: St David
Town: Ffestiniog
County/Island: Merionethshire
Country: Wales
Registration district: Festiniog
Sub-registration district: Festiniog
ED, institution, or vessel: 5a
Evan Richard 42
Margt Richard 35
David M Richard 14
John Richard 11
Maggie Richard 8
Winifred Richard 5
Jane Richard 2
Source Citation: Class: RG12; Piece: 4646; Folio 65; Page 15; GSU roll: 6099756.


Or maybe just copy directly into a post without copying from somewhere you've pasted it first?

I also always figure some of that can be eliminated, like sub-registration districts ...

Sorry to disagree with you because I totally agree about all the pointless bumph, but I find it far easier to assimilate all the information the more concise it is.
I believe that our eyes prefer reading left to right to the end of the line because that is what we are used to doing. Thus I can quickly scan and re-scan mine for all the information, and it occupies about 1/4 of the screen (vertically).
Your spread out version occupies half the screen and forces the eyes to move up and down trying to pick out information.
So, I much prefer my version, and you obviously prefer your version.

I had a little thought about the cut and paste from free bmd when you said you did not get triple spacing and lines, I did not until my computer was updated.

Do you believe that the helpers who continue to paste everything have not read this thread, or just think it is not important and have not replied to justify?

Well actually, when I do it myself, I do it like this. ;)

1891

David M Richard
Age: 14
Estimated birth year: abt 1877
Relation: Son
Father's Name: Evan Richard
Mother's Name: Margt Richard
Where born: B Festiniog, Merionethshire, Wales

Civil parish: Ffestiniog
Town: Ffestiniog
County/Island: Merionethshire
Registration district: Festiniog

Evan Richard 42
Margt Richard 35
David M Richard 14
John Richard 11
Maggie Richard 8
Winifred Richard 5
Jane Richard 2

which cuts out more bumph. I have to disagree about the visual scanning. With no punctuation, all of that info runs together, and to someone who doesn't already know what they're looking at, it just isn't coherent. And dense blocks of text are far less easily scanned. (I know, people tell me that about my prose posts all the time!)

As far as why none of the posters who include all the bumph and excess spacing etc. are commenting ... maybe not reading. Maybe the race to be the first to post just overcomes all. Maybe they have those technological problems cited.

In the case of the race to post, though -- it's a simple matter to post and edit immediately ... or heck, even 10 minutes later ... to make it easier to read.

and this is how I post census information ....... although Janey's always telling me off for posting too much!!

1891 Census

Name: David M Richard
Age: 14
Estimated birth year: abt 1877
Relation: Son
Father's Name: Evan Richard
Mother's Name: Margt Richard
Gender: Male
Where born: B Festiniog, Merionethshire, Wales

Civil parish: Ffestiniog
Ecclesiastical parish: St David
Town: Ffestiniog
County/Island: Merionethshire
Country: Wales

Registration district: Festiniog
Sub-registration district: Festiniog

Evan Richard 42 b.ca 1849, Gerriggdumdin, Montgomeryshire, Quarry Man (slate)
Margt Richard 35 b.ca 1856, B Festiniog,
David M Richard 14 Slate Man
John Richard 11 b.ca 1880, B Festiniog, Scholar
Maggie Richard 8 b.ca 1883, B Festiniog,
Winifred Richard 5 b.ca 1886, B Festiniog,
Jane Richard 2 b.ca 1889, B Festiniog,

Address:- Fabrurydd (???sp)

Note in last column that all speak Welsh only



In other words, I go to the image and add the infromation from there




sylvia

Wot a saint. ;) Yes, I often collect info from the image, if it seems useful -- sometimes, we're just posting "for ref", to supply info so woefully lacking from a request post, in the hope that we've guessed the right time, place and people, of course!

And Sylvia, hm, does this mean you're deleting the double-spaced empty fields --


Street Address:

Occupation:

Condition as to marriage:

Education:

Employment status:

View image


? Utterly pointless space-taking bumph, them.

I delete them now JC aint I good lol


jax

Yes, I am surrounded by saints. ;)

Either that or sissies. Hahahaha.

just testing ... Add and Reply links won't work in another thread, seem to be working here ...

Janey


I've been deleting those for a long long time!


s
xxx