Amendment to Census

[Peter]

I was reading the Census page supplied by my Geneaology ISP for my
grand-fathers household dated 1911. It shows the following information:

Forenames, Surname, Age, Year born, Gender, Relation, Marriage Status,
Years married, Birth place and Occupation.

For my grand-father this information is provided in dupllicate on two
separate lines both of which are, as I said, duplicates.
The duplicated line carries the following amendment, "This an amendment
submitted by a user".

This puzzles me as I thought the census was an official page and not
subject to later non-official alteration. And who was the user?

If anyone wants to see the actual page, then the image reference is:

RG14 - PN32090 RD588 SD2 ED23 SN322

Peter James

[john]

Post by Peter
I was reading the Census page supplied by my Geneaology ISP for my
Forenames, Surname, Age, Year born, Gender, Relation, Marriage Status,
Years married, Birth place and Occupation.
For my grand-father this information is provided in dupllicate on two
separate lines both of which are, as I said, duplicates.
The duplicated line carries the following amendment, "This an amendment
submitted by a user".
This puzzles me as I thought the census was an official page and not
subject to later non-official alteration. And who was the user?
RG14 - PN32090 RD588 SD2 ED23 SN322
Peter James

Are you looking at the original census page or the transcription of the
page?

For 1911 the head of household completed the form you see.

If it is the transcription then there could be an error and another user
looking at it has provided their own correction.

[Jenny M Benson]

Post by Peter
I was reading the Census page supplied by my Geneaology ISP for my
Forenames, Surname, Age, Year born, Gender, Relation, Marriage Status,
Years married, Birth place and Occupation.
For my grand-father this information is provided in dupllicate on two
separate lines both of which are, as I said, duplicates.
The duplicated line carries the following amendment, "This an amendment
submitted by a user".
This puzzles me as I thought the census was an official page and not
subject to later non-official alteration. And who was the user?
RG14 - PN32090 RD588 SD2 ED23 SN322
Peter James

"My Geneaology ISP" means nothing to me. I looked at the record on
Ancestry.

On the original schedule completed by the householder, Edward Curtain's
forename was written as "Ewdard". Ancestry member marniedavis submitted
the correction "Edward" which is described as "a variation of the
recorded data."

There is no question of the official document being altered. This never
happens when corrections (either amendments to the transcription or
variations as above) are submitted to sites such as Ancestry and FindMyPast.

[Peter]

Snipped
"My Geneaology ISP" means nothing to me. I looked at the record on
Ancestry.
On the original schedule completed by the householder, Edward Curtain's
forename was written as "Ewdard". Ancestry member marniedavis submitted
the correction "Edward" which is described as "a variation of the
recorded data."
There is no question of the official document being altered. This never
happens when corrections (either amendments to the transcription or
variations as above) are submitted to sites such as Ancestry and FindMyPast.

Thank you. I looked at that entry until I was seeing double. I still
didn't spot the spelling mistake. I'd make a lousy proofreader!
Peter

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Post by Jenny M Benson

Post by Peter
I was reading the Census page supplied by my Geneaology ISP for my

[]

Post by Jenny M Benson

Post by Peter
The duplicated line carries the following amendment, "This an amendment
submitted by a user".
This puzzles me as I thought the census was an official page and not
subject to later non-official alteration. And who was the user?

[]

Post by Jenny M Benson
"My Geneaology ISP" means nothing to me. I looked at the record on
Ancestry.
On the original schedule completed by the householder, Edward Curtain's
forename was written as "Ewdard". Ancestry member marniedavis
submitted the correction "Edward" which is described as "a variation of
the recorded data."
There is no question of the official document being altered. This
never happens when corrections (either amendments to the transcription
or variations as above) are submitted to sites such as Ancestry and
FindMyPast.

What Jenny said. Usually, the corrections are because the transcribers
mistranscribed it - sometimes just a genuine mistake (we all make
mistakes), sometimes the original is indistinct (and the other customer
has other information that enabled them - e. g. from earlier censuses -
that enables them to figure it out better than the first transcribers
can. Not infrequently, especially in the case of Ancestry transcribers,
they mistranscribe it more than we would because they are unfamiliar
with English (etc.) forenames, surnames, placenames, and other such.

If you are using Ancestry or FindMyPast, always view (and download) the
original: on Ancestry click on the thumbnail in the transcription, then
when you get it full-window, click the tools icon; on FindMyPast click
View Image, then Download.

Ancestry _always_ retain their transcribers' efforts as primary, however
ridiculous they are (and I've seen some doozies); I don't know why they
do that. (Well, it saves money I suppose. They have another claimed
reason which I don't accept.) I don't know about FindMyPast: when you
submit a correction their site implies it will be reviewed by a real
human, so I _hope_ they actually replace erroneous transcriptions.

Very occasionally, as in this case according to Jenny, the original
record _is_ in error (unless the guy's name really was EWDARD!); that's
arguably one of the cases where it does make sense to retain both
variants (the original transcriber did _not_ make an error).

If the alternative you are looking at is on Ancestry, then clicking on
it (or possibly just hovering over it, I'm not sure) will show you (a)
the username of the person who submitted the correction (or, as in this
case, alternative), (b) the reason they submitted it. I think there's
the possibility to try to contact them; since they're researching the
same person you are, that's always worth a try, though the ancestor may
be of only passing interest to them (sibling, child of sibling, possibly
no connection at all they just spotted an error) rather than a direct
ancestor as in your case. (I've sadly found other Ancestry customers
mostly _don't_ respond to contact attempts, though with some
exceptions.)

JPG
--


(Where has the "treat northern Ireland differently" option gone?)

Three- (or four-) way referendum, if we _have_ to have another one.
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Petitions are still unfair.
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