1841 Births

[cmahoneynz]

Generally, we are supposed to be doing an exact transcription of the records, and for the most part, this is happening.

However, when it comes to the 1841 census, we are changing the "yes" and "no" places of birth into something else to help with searches on Places of Birth, which I can understand.

The concern here is (which I have seen raised elsewhere) is that if we are making some obvious changes to the original records here, then some may consider the possiblity that we are making changes elsewhere as well and thus, the question of the accuracy of the transcriptions comes into question.

My suggestion here is that in an appropiate place on the website we actually put up a message alerting people to the fact that when it comes to 1841 Places of Birth we are actually changing the "yes" and "no" into an actual chapman code, and why we are doing so

[AlOneill]

We are also 'correcting' some of the place names, I believe. Do we flag this?

What else are we not transcribing exactly?

[cmahoneynz]

Changing places of birth on the 1841 census is something we are intentionally doing, for good reasons, and something, I think should be mentioned in an appropiate place on the website.

Also, if a piece was done under FreeCEN1, then changes to what was enumerated are almost certain to have happened somewhere in any given piece due to restrictions in field lengths. Something easy to explain, and possibly also should be mentioned in an appropiate place on the website. Fields most likely affected are Occupations, and Places of Birth.

Beyond that, I see no excuse for anyone deviating from "Type what you see", and do remind my groups to transcribe exactly as enumerated without making any changes, even if it looks wrong, and leave the assumptions to the researchers. I also remind them that we do have use of the Notes column if they think an appropiate messge about an entry is needed.

Having said that, some are known to making changes anyway, and the most common one I see is where a word (or name) is abbreviated on the original document, but the transcriber will expand it into full anyway. And another common one I see is when a gender has been enumerated into the wrong column, but the transcriber will correct anyway

In the case of Places of Births, again my instructions to my transcribers is that the verbatim place of birth is to match exactly that as enumerated, and make use of the Alternative Places of Birth to enter one that matches the Gazetteer. For example, if place of birth says "Paris France" then transcribe as "Paris France", and then as an alternative POB, transcribe it as "France Paris"

Website in search results does show both Verbatim Place of Birth, and Alternative Place of Birth which means researchers here are seeing both the enumerated name, and our suggested alternative (which matches our gazateer).

[DeniseColbert]

@geoffj-FUG where/how do you think we should address this for users?

[geoffj-FUG]

Denise

We are not changing place names. We are recording ‘as is’ and then offering an alternative as well. That was a specific requirement as we developed FreeCEN2.

If I have a Somerset piece and it says ‘Yes’ born in county, Then this is specific. I see no problem in recording the birth county as SOM.

This is no different to our using the 1841 occupation table to expand 1841 occupations. The result is still specific to the entry and there is no doubt to the result.

Geoff

From: DeniseColbert @.> Sent: Wednesday, 2 October 2024 7:35 PM To: FreeUKGen/FreeCENMigration @.> Cc: Geoff J @.>; Mention @.> Subject: Re: [FreeUKGen/FreeCENMigration] 1841 Births (Issue #1809)

@geoffj-FUG https://github.com/geoffj-FUG where/how do you think we should address this for users?

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[cmahoneynz]

Think about this from the end users point of view, especially one who is not familar with old records, or doing research.

Showed someone who knows nothing about any of this a scan from the 1841 cenus, and asked them to compare it with the transcript of the same scan we have on the website. Their view, some very clear, and obvious mistakes were made with the transcription, and this calls into question the overall accuracy of the transcription of the whole website.

Then asked them would their view change if they saw a good explanation as to the differences between the transcription and the scan, and answer was yes, they would then accept the transcription is correct.

And I am sure there are others with similar views.

As such, my view is still the same, where a transcription show something different to the scan, and a good reason for this exits, then an explanation needs to be provided where they can see it