The three basic tools of Cornish family history research are the registers of Births, Marriages & Deaths; the census returns; and the parish registers. The first two are coming on nicely, so we would like to turn our attention to the parish registers.
Recently a well-known Australian traveller has discovered what many of us have known for a long time. The records bequeathed us by our ancestors are often faded, damaged, badly written and poorly reproduced. They also, in the main, have to be viewed on antiquated equipment.
We would like to get the Cornish parish registers transcribed and placed online free-to-view. It has been estimated that there are 5 million records in the Cornish parish registers. In spite of hard labour by quite a few people, the surface has hardly been scratched.
I don't know how you are dealing with parish registers, but many of you may do what I do. I usually transcribe any that look as though they might be useful. So, looking for ROBERTS in Coverack in the late 18th century, I find there are 5 families, but only one is mine. So I transcribe the lot including any in surrounding parishes. Just in case. These transcripts can be used by us.
If you have got the film at your local FHC, it's worth the time to transcribe anything that might be yours - however remote. If you have bought parish registers on fiche and have extracted your ancestors, why not get some added value and help other Cornish researchers to find their ancestors?
It doesn't matter how many you have done, 10 or 10,000, just send them in. Nor do they have to be sequential or provide complete coverage, just send them in.
Those transcripts, however incomplete, can be added to the pile. 1 or 10,000 - they can be used. Ideally, we would like you to transcribe to our prescribed layout - this can be seen on http://www.cornwall-opc.org/Resc/sample_database.htm But we don't insist on this.
How will they be used? There will be a new OPC online database - searchable & free-to-view. We have several hundred thousand records already - so five million shouldn't take long. Our policy on distribution and ownership is that of the COCP. The information belongs to no one and everyone. Bit like the Cornish motto really.
Obviously we need another confusing set of initials - so we have decided on the Cornish Parish Registers Online Project - C-PROP. It even has a motto - Send us your dead!
Friday, April 28, 2006
Friday, April 14, 2006
Things that are crossed out or added
The census pages are littered with words crossed out; words added, and various markings that often obscure the enumerator's valuable words. We have to make sense of them.
The alterations fall into two groups. Those that seem to have been made at an early stage, perhaps by the enumerator or the registrar. Typical of these are where the enumerator has described someone as a pauper. This was not required to be entered, but it often is. It is then crossed out; either by the enumerator or the registrar, who was supposed to check the returns before they were attested to and sent off to London. With these alterations, the data should be entered with a note stating that it was crossed out. If you can get this into the occupation field, well and good, if not, enter it as a note. Where records (including whole households) are crossed out, enter them with a note. Even if they should appear elsewhere; they may not - and what is lost?
The second group of alterations appear to have been made much later; probably by the clerks in London. Typical of these are those found in the place of birth field. They have inserted a county where only a place name is given. Sometimes it is obvious they are right, other times you wonder how they could possibly have known. We stretch the "as is" concept here, and you can enter the county they suggest if it looks right to you. When they don't know the answer, they often write ALS; I have no idea what this means. Sometimes, when the age is given as N K, someone has entered an age in round numbers next to the age column. This is best entered as a note as we have no idea who entered it and why. One of the reasons for the census was to work out the size of the agricultural and other industrial sectors. By 1891 there was quite a complex system of classification; they can often be seen in the occupation field; we ignore them.
Transcribers & checkers have to make a judgement on what is to be included. If information looks good but is crossed out, enter it with a note. If it looks like a later addition, ignore it except where it is covered above.
Finally, there are the markings that add nothing to the data. Typical of these are the annoyingly thick strokes through ages; presumably made as the clerks grouped the population by age. We just have to work through these.
The alterations fall into two groups. Those that seem to have been made at an early stage, perhaps by the enumerator or the registrar. Typical of these are where the enumerator has described someone as a pauper. This was not required to be entered, but it often is. It is then crossed out; either by the enumerator or the registrar, who was supposed to check the returns before they were attested to and sent off to London. With these alterations, the data should be entered with a note stating that it was crossed out. If you can get this into the occupation field, well and good, if not, enter it as a note. Where records (including whole households) are crossed out, enter them with a note. Even if they should appear elsewhere; they may not - and what is lost?
The second group of alterations appear to have been made much later; probably by the clerks in London. Typical of these are those found in the place of birth field. They have inserted a county where only a place name is given. Sometimes it is obvious they are right, other times you wonder how they could possibly have known. We stretch the "as is" concept here, and you can enter the county they suggest if it looks right to you. When they don't know the answer, they often write ALS; I have no idea what this means. Sometimes, when the age is given as N K, someone has entered an age in round numbers next to the age column. This is best entered as a note as we have no idea who entered it and why. One of the reasons for the census was to work out the size of the agricultural and other industrial sectors. By 1891 there was quite a complex system of classification; they can often be seen in the occupation field; we ignore them.
Transcribers & checkers have to make a judgement on what is to be included. If information looks good but is crossed out, enter it with a note. If it looks like a later addition, ignore it except where it is covered above.
Finally, there are the markings that add nothing to the data. Typical of these are the annoyingly thick strokes through ages; presumably made as the clerks grouped the population by age. We just have to work through these.
Census Taking in Cornwall - No 1
Each Registration District was divided into sub-districts and each sub-district had a number of Enumerators. The Enumerators were recruited for a particular census and were generally of the opinion they were underpaid for what they were asked to do. In 1871 the pay scales were as follows:
A fixed fee of one guinea.
2s6d for each 100 persons in their area above 400.
6d for every mile above the first five miles covered in delivering schedules.
6d for every mile above the first five miles covered in collecting the schedules.
The local registrars were responsible for keeping track of changes in their district and for dividing it into roughly 200 household pieces. Each of these would have an enumerator and the authorities hoped to recruit men of local standing who would undertake the job as a social duty.
“He must be a person of intelligence and activity; he must read and write well and have some knowledge of arithmetic; he must not be infirm or of such weak health as may render him unable to undergo the requisite exertion; he should not be younger than 18 years of age or older than 65; he must be temperate, orderly and respectable, and be such a person as is likely to conduct himself with strict propriety, and to deserve the goodwill of the inhabitants of his district.”
Each enumerator was supplied with a set of household schedules, an enumerator’s book, and an instruction and memorandum book. This latter was used to order the houses, mark down where houses were being built or were uninhabited, and to keep a check on whether or not they had collected all the schedules distributed. These books do not appear to have survived.
When collecting the schedules the enumerators were to assist in completing the forms. They then copied them into the enumerator’s book. These books were supposed to be checked by the local registrars. Finally, the books arrived in Whitehall, where clerks extracted the data for statistical purposes.
Making Sense of the Census Revisited by Edward Higgs. Published by University of London in conjunction with TNA.
A fixed fee of one guinea.
2s6d for each 100 persons in their area above 400.
6d for every mile above the first five miles covered in delivering schedules.
6d for every mile above the first five miles covered in collecting the schedules.
The local registrars were responsible for keeping track of changes in their district and for dividing it into roughly 200 household pieces. Each of these would have an enumerator and the authorities hoped to recruit men of local standing who would undertake the job as a social duty.
“He must be a person of intelligence and activity; he must read and write well and have some knowledge of arithmetic; he must not be infirm or of such weak health as may render him unable to undergo the requisite exertion; he should not be younger than 18 years of age or older than 65; he must be temperate, orderly and respectable, and be such a person as is likely to conduct himself with strict propriety, and to deserve the goodwill of the inhabitants of his district.”
Each enumerator was supplied with a set of household schedules, an enumerator’s book, and an instruction and memorandum book. This latter was used to order the houses, mark down where houses were being built or were uninhabited, and to keep a check on whether or not they had collected all the schedules distributed. These books do not appear to have survived.
When collecting the schedules the enumerators were to assist in completing the forms. They then copied them into the enumerator’s book. These books were supposed to be checked by the local registrars. Finally, the books arrived in Whitehall, where clerks extracted the data for statistical purposes.
Making Sense of the Census Revisited by Edward Higgs. Published by University of London in conjunction with TNA.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
COCP Newsletter No 4
Hello folks
Since the last newsletter, we have uploaded:
1851
St Minver Lauren Patey (Aus) & Di Thompson (UK)
St Veep Jane McDonnell (US) & Di Thompson (UK)
Trevalga Lauren Patey & David Trounce (Can)
St Teath Lauren Patey & David Trounce
St Erme Sue James & John Nance (both Aus)
1861
1541 Padstow Tina Russell (UK) & Maxine Cadzow (Aus)
1558 Truro St Clement Louise Haywood (Estonia) & Marion Paul (Aus)
1594 Penzance Ceilia Wikert (USA) & Chris Uphill (Aus)
There are five pieces in the queue here; at the moment I am up to my armpits in Warwicks stuff - only two more pieces to go out of 122!
For those of you who have signed up to jabber; the chat room server is now conference.jabber.org rather than private.jabber.org. The name is the same. To those of you who haven't tried it - it will give you one-to-one with me or entry to the chat room. There is nearly always someone there who will look up a difficult entry for you. Please give it a whirl - if you don't like it don't use it. But try it. Details of how to get signed up are on an earlier post in this blog.
Found a new "old" occupation today - Hokey Pokey maker. If this sounds familiar - try looking at http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/hokey.htm
In fact, it was a type of ice cream sold by street vendors.
Here in Cornwall it is a cool dry morning; rather overcast. The forecast is good and I am expecting to get some gardening done. I hope that you all have a happy Easter.
Rgds
Michael
Since the last newsletter, we have uploaded:
1851
St Minver Lauren Patey (Aus) & Di Thompson (UK)
St Veep Jane McDonnell (US) & Di Thompson (UK)
Trevalga Lauren Patey & David Trounce (Can)
St Teath Lauren Patey & David Trounce
St Erme Sue James & John Nance (both Aus)
1861
1541 Padstow Tina Russell (UK) & Maxine Cadzow (Aus)
1558 Truro St Clement Louise Haywood (Estonia) & Marion Paul (Aus)
1594 Penzance Ceilia Wikert (USA) & Chris Uphill (Aus)
There are five pieces in the queue here; at the moment I am up to my armpits in Warwicks stuff - only two more pieces to go out of 122!
For those of you who have signed up to jabber; the chat room server is now conference.jabber.org rather than private.jabber.org. The name is the same. To those of you who haven't tried it - it will give you one-to-one with me or entry to the chat room. There is nearly always someone there who will look up a difficult entry for you. Please give it a whirl - if you don't like it don't use it. But try it. Details of how to get signed up are on an earlier post in this blog.
Found a new "old" occupation today - Hokey Pokey maker. If this sounds familiar - try looking at http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/hokey.htm
In fact, it was a type of ice cream sold by street vendors.
Here in Cornwall it is a cool dry morning; rather overcast. The forecast is good and I am expecting to get some gardening done. I hope that you all have a happy Easter.
Rgds
Michael
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
COCP Newsletter No 3
Since the last newsletter we have completed (but possibly not yet uploaded):
1851.
St Austell*
St Minver
St Veep
St Columb Minor*
1861
1559 Kenwyn
1585 Phillack
1855 St Agnes
1871
2321 Illogan
The 1851 pieces with asterisks mark completed pieces that have also gone to Free Census. Here is a notice of interest to 1851 volunteers:
Missing Images from the 1851 CD set from MyCensuses.com (Gordon Beavington): There have been at least two separate releases of this CD set and we have discovered that there are images missing from both these sets. If you are transcribing or checking an 1851 piece and find that you are missing a page then don't worry as all may not be lost!
The first place to check is Bill O'Reilly's 'Online Briefcase' at
http://uk.briefcase.yahoo.com/bill.oreilly@btinternet.com
There you will find a directory called 'CON1851 Census' and Bill has (as of 26th March 2006) 35 files of 'missing images' (and even whole enumeration districts) that he has obtained from Gordon Beavington. Note that one of those files is called 'Instructions-please read' - please do read these instructions before downloading any of the files!
If the page you need is not to be found in the briefcase then please contact Michael, Kay or Bill who will look on their own sets of CD's to see if they have the image.
The last sentence really applies to all years: We have all the discs, both commercial & LDS; plus we have access to Ancestry.com, so if you are stuck, drop us a line. You will get an image or an answer within hours. Especially if you use jabber - our instant messaging system. Why not try it out?
The COCP web site has been revamped using a design by Myra Cordrey (OPC co-ordinator) implemented by Rick & Kay. Please check it out - comments (& pictures) are more than welcome.
Free Census has just restated the position on entering overseas birthplaces. We shall stick to what it says in the COCP General Instructions & this blog.
1851.
St Austell*
St Minver
St Veep
St Columb Minor*
1861
1559 Kenwyn
1585 Phillack
1855 St Agnes
1871
2321 Illogan
The 1851 pieces with asterisks mark completed pieces that have also gone to Free Census. Here is a notice of interest to 1851 volunteers:
Missing Images from the 1851 CD set from MyCensuses.com (Gordon Beavington): There have been at least two separate releases of this CD set and we have discovered that there are images missing from both these sets. If you are transcribing or checking an 1851 piece and find that you are missing a page then don't worry as all may not be lost!
The first place to check is Bill O'Reilly's 'Online Briefcase' at
http://uk.briefcase.yahoo.com/bill.oreilly@btinternet.com
There you will find a directory called 'CON1851 Census' and Bill has (as of 26th March 2006) 35 files of 'missing images' (and even whole enumeration districts) that he has obtained from Gordon Beavington. Note that one of those files is called 'Instructions-please read' - please do read these instructions before downloading any of the files!
If the page you need is not to be found in the briefcase then please contact Michael, Kay or Bill who will look on their own sets of CD's to see if they have the image.
The last sentence really applies to all years: We have all the discs, both commercial & LDS; plus we have access to Ancestry.com, so if you are stuck, drop us a line. You will get an image or an answer within hours. Especially if you use jabber - our instant messaging system. Why not try it out?
The COCP web site has been revamped using a design by Myra Cordrey (OPC co-ordinator) implemented by Rick & Kay. Please check it out - comments (& pictures) are more than welcome.
Free Census has just restated the position on entering overseas birthplaces. We shall stick to what it says in the COCP General Instructions & this blog.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
What is a parish?
Originally the parish was more a collection of rights than a specific area. Before the seventeenth century the parish existed for ecclesiastical purposes as the area under the jurisdiction of a clergyman with the cure of souls. With the establishment of the Elizabeth Poor Law in 1597, the parish began to acquire secular functions, in this case the relief of the poor. Parishes which existed before 1597, and which thereafter had secular as well as ecclesiastical functions, were called ‘ancient parishes’.
‘Civil Parishes” were administrative units which only had secular functions, and were commonly defined as areas for which a separate poor rate could be assessed. The existence, alteration or abolition of these units had no effect on the ecclesiastical arrangements of the locality. Many civil parishes were areas at first subordinate to a mother church which had come in time to enjoy independence, such as hamlets, tithings, townships, chapelries and liberties. If a separate Poor Law rate was levied in the subordinate unit, it could be called a ‘hamlet’, ‘township’, and so on, and/or a ‘parish’. In order to avoid confusion the 1866 Poor Law Amendment Act required that these areas should be called ‘parishes’. Many extra-parochial places had already become civil parishes in 1857.
From 1597 onwards ‘ecclesiastical parishes’ were established for purely ecclesiastical purposes. They were more numerous than civil parishes, especially when efforts were made to build new churches in urban areas where the population was increasing. Many ecclesiastically subordinate areas within parishes, such as chapelries, were raised to parochial rank, and many formed which had no previous status. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a number of statutory provisions allowed the creation of many different types of ecclesiastical or ‘new’ parishes. It was not unusual for a parish to be refounded to gain privileges and rights conferred by newer statutes.
Making Sense of the Census Revisited by Edward Higgs. Published by University of London in conjunction with TNA.
‘Civil Parishes” were administrative units which only had secular functions, and were commonly defined as areas for which a separate poor rate could be assessed. The existence, alteration or abolition of these units had no effect on the ecclesiastical arrangements of the locality. Many civil parishes were areas at first subordinate to a mother church which had come in time to enjoy independence, such as hamlets, tithings, townships, chapelries and liberties. If a separate Poor Law rate was levied in the subordinate unit, it could be called a ‘hamlet’, ‘township’, and so on, and/or a ‘parish’. In order to avoid confusion the 1866 Poor Law Amendment Act required that these areas should be called ‘parishes’. Many extra-parochial places had already become civil parishes in 1857.
From 1597 onwards ‘ecclesiastical parishes’ were established for purely ecclesiastical purposes. They were more numerous than civil parishes, especially when efforts were made to build new churches in urban areas where the population was increasing. Many ecclesiastically subordinate areas within parishes, such as chapelries, were raised to parochial rank, and many formed which had no previous status. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a number of statutory provisions allowed the creation of many different types of ecclesiastical or ‘new’ parishes. It was not unusual for a parish to be refounded to gain privileges and rights conferred by newer statutes.
Making Sense of the Census Revisited by Edward Higgs. Published by University of London in conjunction with TNA.
News from the Homeland 15th March 2006
Thursday is the day the main weekly local papers arrive. In our household we take the Truro edition of The West Briton AND the Newquay edition of the Cornish Guardian.
Last week, the main item of news was about the only general hospital in Cornwall - Treliske in Truro. In spite of their no-doubt excellent financial controls, they have ended up 8.1 million pounds overspent. The Chief Executive and half a dozen other top managers have been taken out into the car park and shot! No they haven't. Instead they are closing wards and operating theatres and sacking 300 people. We are at the end of a nine year experiment in hosing the NHS down with money and it doesn't seem to be working.
The row over the waste incinerator rumbles on. This week the papers named the four potential sites for this thing. They are all, as forecast, in and around St Dennis. I am taking a closer interest as one of the sites is only 3 miles from this computer. Luckily, it is to the east of us and the wind is usually from the south west!
The lead story this week is the arrests in Truro of a couple of East Europeans engaged in running a brothel or pimping. Not what one expects in a respectable Cornish town like Truro - but only to be expected with all these virile daffodil pickers in the county.
The Eden Project is hoping to start a third biome soon - a desert one I think. To celebrate their fifth anniversary, they are offering a year long passport ticket to residents of Cornwall for only five pounds. Shame I bought mine in January! The Eden Project is a good place to take your visitors if you have any. We take the grandchildren ice skating in the winter and to the "jungle nights" in the summer.
Finally, in the autumn, Duchy Opera is staging a mega production of "The Wreckers". Set in Cornwall, this opera hasn't been performed for about a hundred years. I have a vested interest because my wife is the minutes secretary to the ruling council of Duchy Opera. So I get to hear all the news. There is to be a large scale effort involving the Cornish schools as well as the actual production.
Last week, the main item of news was about the only general hospital in Cornwall - Treliske in Truro. In spite of their no-doubt excellent financial controls, they have ended up 8.1 million pounds overspent. The Chief Executive and half a dozen other top managers have been taken out into the car park and shot! No they haven't. Instead they are closing wards and operating theatres and sacking 300 people. We are at the end of a nine year experiment in hosing the NHS down with money and it doesn't seem to be working.
The row over the waste incinerator rumbles on. This week the papers named the four potential sites for this thing. They are all, as forecast, in and around St Dennis. I am taking a closer interest as one of the sites is only 3 miles from this computer. Luckily, it is to the east of us and the wind is usually from the south west!
The lead story this week is the arrests in Truro of a couple of East Europeans engaged in running a brothel or pimping. Not what one expects in a respectable Cornish town like Truro - but only to be expected with all these virile daffodil pickers in the county.
The Eden Project is hoping to start a third biome soon - a desert one I think. To celebrate their fifth anniversary, they are offering a year long passport ticket to residents of Cornwall for only five pounds. Shame I bought mine in January! The Eden Project is a good place to take your visitors if you have any. We take the grandchildren ice skating in the winter and to the "jungle nights" in the summer.
Finally, in the autumn, Duchy Opera is staging a mega production of "The Wreckers". Set in Cornwall, this opera hasn't been performed for about a hundred years. I have a vested interest because my wife is the minutes secretary to the ruling council of Duchy Opera. So I get to hear all the news. There is to be a large scale effort involving the Cornish schools as well as the actual production.
Friday, March 10, 2006
COCP Newsletter No 2
This week we have completed 2321 from 1871(Karen Duvall & Sue McNelly); 1559 from 1861(Tina Russell & John Ford) and St Austell from the 1851( Julia Mosman, Myra Davey, David Trounce & John Nance). The latter means that another complete 1851 piece is done and can therefore be uploaded to Free Census as well as our own web pages. These should all be online in the next week or so.
Here I go again - place of birth. Aids to working out what the enumerator wrote. More of us have broadband and are thus able to run various useful web sites as we work. These can be used to help in deciphering personal and place names.
The first and most obvious is Google. Just type in "St Tiller" and see what happens. Nothing! But you might be luckier than that. Even if the place name is still wrong, you can leave me a useful little note. Recently I had a record that gave some saint's name I had never heard of. But Google threw up a farm in the parish I was looking at that had the right name. Google is also good for personal names & occupations.
Second most obvious site is OURS! The COCP web pages contain over 1.2 million records. There is a search engine and who knows - we might already have encountered your difficult-to-read name.
A site for out-of-county names is Free Census. With nearly 7 million records online the name you are seeking might be there.
A site with zillions of names on is the LDS familysearch.org site. Only one of our checkers uses this to confirm tricky personal names (that I know of) and it is free & fast.
You can always check with me. I have the OS Gazetteer in paper form; every name that is on the OS Explorer maps is in it. I also have a file containing large numbers of Cornish place names - you can have a copy.
Finally, a suggestion from a new transcriber. Insert an extra column in your spreadsheet and enter the jpg ident as you start each page. You can delete the whole column when you have finished.
Of course, with all these aids, you must keep in mind that you are trying to combine speed with accuracy.
Here I go again - place of birth. Aids to working out what the enumerator wrote. More of us have broadband and are thus able to run various useful web sites as we work. These can be used to help in deciphering personal and place names.
The first and most obvious is Google. Just type in "St Tiller" and see what happens. Nothing! But you might be luckier than that. Even if the place name is still wrong, you can leave me a useful little note. Recently I had a record that gave some saint's name I had never heard of. But Google threw up a farm in the parish I was looking at that had the right name. Google is also good for personal names & occupations.
Second most obvious site is OURS! The COCP web pages contain over 1.2 million records. There is a search engine and who knows - we might already have encountered your difficult-to-read name.
A site for out-of-county names is Free Census. With nearly 7 million records online the name you are seeking might be there.
A site with zillions of names on is the LDS familysearch.org site. Only one of our checkers uses this to confirm tricky personal names (that I know of) and it is free & fast.
You can always check with me. I have the OS Gazetteer in paper form; every name that is on the OS Explorer maps is in it. I also have a file containing large numbers of Cornish place names - you can have a copy.
Finally, a suggestion from a new transcriber. Insert an extra column in your spreadsheet and enter the jpg ident as you start each page. You can delete the whole column when you have finished.
Of course, with all these aids, you must keep in mind that you are trying to combine speed with accuracy.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
COCP Newsletter No 1
Good morning from Cornwall
We continue to make good progress; about a dozen pieces were uploaded in February. Roughly speaking, we have completed about 70% of the 1851 & 1861 and 25% of the 1871. Although little effort is being put into the 1881 project so far, we have uploaded about 6%.
On the wider front, Free Census now has nearly 7 million records online; we have contributed over 1.1 million of these. Of course, we have done more than this as we have a lot of records on the COCP site that have not been uploaded to Free Census as yet. On my other projects; Warwicks 91 & Nth Wilts, the Warwicks project is nearly finished, with only six pieces out of 122 remaining to be done. Nth Wilts has barely started, but has 40 volunteers beavering away.
It seems the LDS are planning to digitise and place online many of the records they have filmed over the years, including the parish registers. These will be indexed and this will take a long time. In Cornwall of course, the OPC scheme is already busy doing a full transcript of the Cornish parish registers.
Now-a-days, we don't seem to have many major problems on the COCP; do I sound sad? Well, I am not. However, one of the areas that slows down validation in particular is the place of birth field. I am not sure that everyone understands what is required of them.
We aim to reproduce what the enumerator wrote. Nothing more, nothing less. So, while it is nice that someone works out where St Tiller is (I wish I knew); the result of their detective work isn't going to appear online. It will have to be St Tiller. It does help me if it is difficult to read but you have left a note suggesting what it might be.
There seems to be an enduring tendency not to use the Chapman codes for Irish & Scots counties. This is not just a Cornish thing; the WAR91 volunteers are just the same. They are there and should be used. Please.
The Free Census instructions are quite clear - above all - write down what is in the field! So if the enumerator writes N K or Unknown, please put it in. Only if the field is empty do we break the "as is" rule and we put a hyphen to show that we have looked and the field is empty.
The overseas birth question is a Free Census mess. The COCP has tried to get it made more sensible but have failed. Please read the paragraph in the general instructions about how you determine if a person is OVB or OVF.
Amongst the posts on this thing, there is one on communications. This project is built round email; I am always pleased to hear from you with a small update on your progress; or just to say hello. You can also use instant messaging. You don't have to use the chatroom, but the system will give you instant one-to-one with me if I am online, as I usually am during UK daylight hours. You can pop up and ask me to look at an image; I am quite good at deciphering these things, as you would expect after six years! Give it a try, if you don't like, you can just ditch it.
Thank you all for your continuing support.
Rgds
Michael
We continue to make good progress; about a dozen pieces were uploaded in February. Roughly speaking, we have completed about 70% of the 1851 & 1861 and 25% of the 1871. Although little effort is being put into the 1881 project so far, we have uploaded about 6%.
On the wider front, Free Census now has nearly 7 million records online; we have contributed over 1.1 million of these. Of course, we have done more than this as we have a lot of records on the COCP site that have not been uploaded to Free Census as yet. On my other projects; Warwicks 91 & Nth Wilts, the Warwicks project is nearly finished, with only six pieces out of 122 remaining to be done. Nth Wilts has barely started, but has 40 volunteers beavering away.
It seems the LDS are planning to digitise and place online many of the records they have filmed over the years, including the parish registers. These will be indexed and this will take a long time. In Cornwall of course, the OPC scheme is already busy doing a full transcript of the Cornish parish registers.
Now-a-days, we don't seem to have many major problems on the COCP; do I sound sad? Well, I am not. However, one of the areas that slows down validation in particular is the place of birth field. I am not sure that everyone understands what is required of them.
We aim to reproduce what the enumerator wrote. Nothing more, nothing less. So, while it is nice that someone works out where St Tiller is (I wish I knew); the result of their detective work isn't going to appear online. It will have to be St Tiller. It does help me if it is difficult to read but you have left a note suggesting what it might be.
There seems to be an enduring tendency not to use the Chapman codes for Irish & Scots counties. This is not just a Cornish thing; the WAR91 volunteers are just the same. They are there and should be used. Please.
The Free Census instructions are quite clear - above all - write down what is in the field! So if the enumerator writes N K or Unknown, please put it in. Only if the field is empty do we break the "as is" rule and we put a hyphen to show that we have looked and the field is empty.
The overseas birth question is a Free Census mess. The COCP has tried to get it made more sensible but have failed. Please read the paragraph in the general instructions about how you determine if a person is OVB or OVF.
Amongst the posts on this thing, there is one on communications. This project is built round email; I am always pleased to hear from you with a small update on your progress; or just to say hello. You can also use instant messaging. You don't have to use the chatroom, but the system will give you instant one-to-one with me if I am online, as I usually am during UK daylight hours. You can pop up and ask me to look at an image; I am quite good at deciphering these things, as you would expect after six years! Give it a try, if you don't like, you can just ditch it.
Thank you all for your continuing support.
Rgds
Michael
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Starting up with the COCP
Your disc has arrived plus far too many instructions and a pre-formatted spreadsheet. What next?
First, the disc. The LDS-supplied discs contain lots and lots of jpg files. Each one is a page and each one has to be opened individually. Acrobat Reader does not work with them. Probably the best thing to do is download the free software IrfanView. This is a Paintshop-like piece of software that enables you to manipulate the images.
How you transcribe is largely up to you. Some people transcribe to paper first, but most probably transcribe straight into the spreadsheet. A number of you are printing the images and transcribing from them straight into a spreadsheet. You can transcribe horizontally or vertically. Personally, I always do it vertically, a page at a time. I do the forenames first, then the surnames and then work to the right. Finally I fill in the details to the left of the surnames. You may find it easier to transcribe at least your first six pages onto paper and then input them into the spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet comes to you formatted as.csv (comma separated variables). We use this because it reduces the size of the files and this matters because all files are sent by email on our project. It should open in the most common WP spreadsheet programmes, MSWord and MSWorks. It you can’t get it to open, launch your spreadsheet programme and try to open the file from within the programme. If all else fails, let me know and I’ll resend the file formatted so that you can open it.
Once you have it open, resave it as a normal spreadsheet. Forget about .csv till you have completed the task.
A major problem is squeezing everything into a 15” screen. Irfanview will allow you to reduce the size of the image area being displayed. The spreadsheet can be seized by the bottom right hand corner and made smaller. The luxourious solution is the one adopted by me – I have two flat screens hooked up to my computer. However, I was lucky in that a computer I was discarding had a 15 inch flat screen and all I had to do was buy a second video card.
Other people are running a laptop alongside their desktop. And at least one volunteer is using a TV as a second screen.
Your first target is to produce six pages for a "health" check. Do read the Field Descriptions and the General Instructions. The answers to most questions are in them.
Good luck!
First, the disc. The LDS-supplied discs contain lots and lots of jpg files. Each one is a page and each one has to be opened individually. Acrobat Reader does not work with them. Probably the best thing to do is download the free software IrfanView. This is a Paintshop-like piece of software that enables you to manipulate the images.
How you transcribe is largely up to you. Some people transcribe to paper first, but most probably transcribe straight into the spreadsheet. A number of you are printing the images and transcribing from them straight into a spreadsheet. You can transcribe horizontally or vertically. Personally, I always do it vertically, a page at a time. I do the forenames first, then the surnames and then work to the right. Finally I fill in the details to the left of the surnames. You may find it easier to transcribe at least your first six pages onto paper and then input them into the spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet comes to you formatted as.csv (comma separated variables). We use this because it reduces the size of the files and this matters because all files are sent by email on our project. It should open in the most common WP spreadsheet programmes, MSWord and MSWorks. It you can’t get it to open, launch your spreadsheet programme and try to open the file from within the programme. If all else fails, let me know and I’ll resend the file formatted so that you can open it.
Once you have it open, resave it as a normal spreadsheet. Forget about .csv till you have completed the task.
A major problem is squeezing everything into a 15” screen. Irfanview will allow you to reduce the size of the image area being displayed. The spreadsheet can be seized by the bottom right hand corner and made smaller. The luxourious solution is the one adopted by me – I have two flat screens hooked up to my computer. However, I was lucky in that a computer I was discarding had a 15 inch flat screen and all I had to do was buy a second video card.
Other people are running a laptop alongside their desktop. And at least one volunteer is using a TV as a second screen.
Your first target is to produce six pages for a "health" check. Do read the Field Descriptions and the General Instructions. The answers to most questions are in them.
Good luck!
Friday, January 27, 2006
News from the Homeland
The main news from EUSWR(C) this week concerns the County Council's reported decision to spend FIVE HUNDRED MILLION POUNDS on a waste incinerator. Apparently, they are about to award a 30-year contract to a French company (spit!) to build and run a state-of-the-art waste incinerator somewhere in Cornwall. Currently, St Dennis seems to be the prime candidate for this treat. They are not, surprise surprise, too happy about this.
The County Council and the French company are adamant that the emissions from this plant are completely safe. Suggestions that in that case it could be sited in the grounds of County Hall were dismissed by the authorities. The French company of course will be a long way upwind.
You might wonder why we need to burn waste; why not just dump it in some of the large holes that litter the Cornish landscape. Well, the EU has a directive on waste disposal, and as the rest of the EU is short of holes, it has to be recycled or burnt. The end result is that, after suitable gold-plating by the Cornish government in Truro and the Scottish government in London, the Cornish tax payers are going to have to pay for this vast new enterprise. And breath in the fumes as well.
St Dennis is about five miles from where I sit and is the home of the europhile MP, Matthew Taylor. Ironic really. It is said that the plant will be served by a lorry every two minutes, or was it every 20 seconds? In fact, it seems likely that to be efficient it will have to import English waste!
You couldn't make it up!
The County Council and the French company are adamant that the emissions from this plant are completely safe. Suggestions that in that case it could be sited in the grounds of County Hall were dismissed by the authorities. The French company of course will be a long way upwind.
You might wonder why we need to burn waste; why not just dump it in some of the large holes that litter the Cornish landscape. Well, the EU has a directive on waste disposal, and as the rest of the EU is short of holes, it has to be recycled or burnt. The end result is that, after suitable gold-plating by the Cornish government in Truro and the Scottish government in London, the Cornish tax payers are going to have to pay for this vast new enterprise. And breath in the fumes as well.
St Dennis is about five miles from where I sit and is the home of the europhile MP, Matthew Taylor. Ironic really. It is said that the plant will be served by a lorry every two minutes, or was it every 20 seconds? In fact, it seems likely that to be efficient it will have to import English waste!
You couldn't make it up!
Thursday, January 26, 2006
"Health" checks
The ‘Health Check’
Transcribing census records is not difficult but it is vital that the information is transcribed in the standard FreeCEN format. This is why we carry out a ‘health check’ at an early stage so that we can check that the transcriber has understood the instructions and is entering the right information, in the right format, in the right place!
What we ask transcribers to do is to transcribe about 6 pages and then send their spreadsheet to me, Bill, at bill.or@btopenworld.com so that I can take a look at the file format to spot any misunderstandings. I’ve been doing this for more than 2 years now and I can confirm that, so far, no one has ever got the format 100% correct!!
I will send you a detailed response explaining what is wrong and how it should be corrected and I have built up a pick-list of ‘standard transcription errors’ to save me typing the same text over and over again. Some of the common errors are as follows:
Folio Numbers
The folio numbers are incorrect or missing. You’ll find the folio number in the top right hand corner of every other page. This folio number applies to the page on which you see it and the next one. They look ‘different’ as they were stamped by hand during the binding process.
Schedule number and Address
This should be completed for the first (and only the first) entry for each schedule – even if the enumerator has spread the address over 2 lines.
Continuing Schedule/Address
If a household spans two pages and the enumerator has repeated the schedule number and/or the address at the top of the second page then do not enter this in the spreadsheet. The reason is that the schedule number and address must only be entered against the first member of the household and if you repeat it then it splits the household.
Relationship to Head
This is a six character coded field and there is a list of the standard abbreviations in the documentation. If you can’t find the list then let me know and I’ll email you a copy. Thus an entry of, say, ‘Mother in law’ gets transcribed as ‘Mtrlaw’. Watch out for Brother, Servant, Boarder, Visitor etc as they are all 7 characters and get transcribed as ‘brothr’, ‘servnt’, ‘boardr’, ‘visitr’.
Long Occupations
Watch out for occupation entries that are too long as these will cause me to have to edit each one myself! There is a column width guide in row 3 but this is only useful if you have set the font for your spreadsheet to be ‘Courier’ or some other fixed width font. A common occupation problem is one such as ‘Farmer of xxx acres employing x men and y boys’. This can be abbreviated to ‘farmer xxx acr empl Xm+Yb’. If it still will not fit then you can use the notes field as a continuation.
When you get a reply from me after the health check please don’t think that I am telling you off! My only desire is to help you transcribe the records in the right format so that I have as little work to do as possible when you have finished transcribing and send me the file to prepare for the checking stage!
Transcribing census records is not difficult but it is vital that the information is transcribed in the standard FreeCEN format. This is why we carry out a ‘health check’ at an early stage so that we can check that the transcriber has understood the instructions and is entering the right information, in the right format, in the right place!
What we ask transcribers to do is to transcribe about 6 pages and then send their spreadsheet to me, Bill, at bill.or@btopenworld.com so that I can take a look at the file format to spot any misunderstandings. I’ve been doing this for more than 2 years now and I can confirm that, so far, no one has ever got the format 100% correct!!
I will send you a detailed response explaining what is wrong and how it should be corrected and I have built up a pick-list of ‘standard transcription errors’ to save me typing the same text over and over again. Some of the common errors are as follows:
Folio Numbers
The folio numbers are incorrect or missing. You’ll find the folio number in the top right hand corner of every other page. This folio number applies to the page on which you see it and the next one. They look ‘different’ as they were stamped by hand during the binding process.
Schedule number and Address
This should be completed for the first (and only the first) entry for each schedule – even if the enumerator has spread the address over 2 lines.
Continuing Schedule/Address
If a household spans two pages and the enumerator has repeated the schedule number and/or the address at the top of the second page then do not enter this in the spreadsheet. The reason is that the schedule number and address must only be entered against the first member of the household and if you repeat it then it splits the household.
Relationship to Head
This is a six character coded field and there is a list of the standard abbreviations in the documentation. If you can’t find the list then let me know and I’ll email you a copy. Thus an entry of, say, ‘Mother in law’ gets transcribed as ‘Mtrlaw’. Watch out for Brother, Servant, Boarder, Visitor etc as they are all 7 characters and get transcribed as ‘brothr’, ‘servnt’, ‘boardr’, ‘visitr’.
Long Occupations
Watch out for occupation entries that are too long as these will cause me to have to edit each one myself! There is a column width guide in row 3 but this is only useful if you have set the font for your spreadsheet to be ‘Courier’ or some other fixed width font. A common occupation problem is one such as ‘Farmer of xxx acres employing x men and y boys’. This can be abbreviated to ‘farmer xxx acr empl Xm+Yb’. If it still will not fit then you can use the notes field as a continuation.
When you get a reply from me after the health check please don’t think that I am telling you off! My only desire is to help you transcribe the records in the right format so that I have as little work to do as possible when you have finished transcribing and send me the file to prepare for the checking stage!
Monday, January 16, 2006
Relationships
The Relationship field allows six characters. The standard rules apply. Start by removing vowels. Will it make sense?
There is a standardised list, appended below. However, it is not possible to cover all eventualities and common sense should apply. If you have produced a previously unheard of abbreviation; then expand it in the notes field. As with every other field, we now have 1.2 million records online; a browse through them might resolve your problem.
adopted adoptd
apprentice appren
assistant asstnt
Attendent Attend
aunt aunt
Bar Maid Brmaid
Chief Nurse Chfnse
Companion Compan
cook cook
boarder boardr
brother brothr
brother-in-law brolaw
cousin cousin
daughter dau
dau-in-law daulaw
father father
father-in-law ftrlaw
granddaughter grndau
grandfather grnftr
grandmother grnmtr
grandson grnson
Great Grandson Ggnson
Great Grand daughter Ggndau
great aunt gtaunt
great uncle gtuncl
governess gvrnss
half-brother hlfbro
half-sister hlfsis
head head
Housekeeper Hsekpr
House maid Hsemad
husband husbnd
inmate inmate
lodger lodger
Maid Maid
mistress mstres
mother mother
mother-in-law mtrlaw
nephew nephew
niece niece
Nightwatchman nghtwh
nurse child nrschd
Officer Offcer
Officer's Wife Offwif
Passenger passgr
patient ptient
pauper pauper
Porter porter
Porter's wife ptrwif
prisoner prisnr
pupil/scholar pupil
relative reltiv
servant servnt
shopwoman shpwmn
sister sister
Sister-in-law sislaw
son son
son-in-law sonlaw
step-brother stpbro
step-daughter stpdau
stepfather stpftr
stepmother stpmtr
stepsister stpsis
stepson stpson
stoker stoker
stranger strngr
traveller trvelr
uncle uncle
visitor visitr
wife wife
Wife's father wifftr
wife's mother wifmtr
wife's dau wifdau
wife's son wifson
You will notice that we have replaced Ma & Pa with Mtr & Ftr. I don't want anyone backtracking, both versions are acceptable.
There is a standardised list, appended below. However, it is not possible to cover all eventualities and common sense should apply. If you have produced a previously unheard of abbreviation; then expand it in the notes field. As with every other field, we now have 1.2 million records online; a browse through them might resolve your problem.
adopted adoptd
apprentice appren
assistant asstnt
Attendent Attend
aunt aunt
Bar Maid Brmaid
Chief Nurse Chfnse
Companion Compan
cook cook
boarder boardr
brother brothr
brother-in-law brolaw
cousin cousin
daughter dau
dau-in-law daulaw
father father
father-in-law ftrlaw
granddaughter grndau
grandfather grnftr
grandmother grnmtr
grandson grnson
Great Grandson Ggnson
Great Grand daughter Ggndau
great aunt gtaunt
great uncle gtuncl
governess gvrnss
half-brother hlfbro
half-sister hlfsis
head head
Housekeeper Hsekpr
House maid Hsemad
husband husbnd
inmate inmate
lodger lodger
Maid Maid
mistress mstres
mother mother
mother-in-law mtrlaw
nephew nephew
niece niece
Nightwatchman nghtwh
nurse child nrschd
Officer Offcer
Officer's Wife Offwif
Passenger passgr
patient ptient
pauper pauper
Porter porter
Porter's wife ptrwif
prisoner prisnr
pupil/scholar pupil
relative reltiv
servant servnt
shopwoman shpwmn
sister sister
Sister-in-law sislaw
son son
son-in-law sonlaw
step-brother stpbro
step-daughter stpdau
stepfather stpftr
stepmother stpmtr
stepsister stpsis
stepson stpson
stoker stoker
stranger strngr
traveller trvelr
uncle uncle
visitor visitr
wife wife
Wife's father wifftr
wife's mother wifmtr
wife's dau wifdau
wife's son wifson
You will notice that we have replaced Ma & Pa with Mtr & Ftr. I don't want anyone backtracking, both versions are acceptable.
Shipping Returns
Most of you will not come across shipping returns; however, Cornwall being Cornwall, lots of pieces do have a few ships in them.
Shipping returns are covered in the general instructions, but it is obvious that the information is not getting through.
Usually, ships have two types of pages; both should be photographed by the LDS. One is the crew list, which you treat just as you do any other page of returns, except that it usually has the Master’s signature on the bottom. This might be important if the Captain is not on board. It also has the ship’s name at the top, sometimes useful if you cannot read the name on the other page that should be photographed.
The second page is the schedule front page. We don’t see these pages normally because we are transcribing from the enumerator’s returns and these are the actual householder schedules. So the Captain’s signature is the genuine article. There is a lot of information (usually) on this page that can be extracted. The address is the ship’s name plus its home port, written as (Elizabeth) Fowey. Any schedule number will be at the top of the page and will be issued when the forms are picked up, probably in another port. The ED number is nearly always zero, but has a suffix, 2 for RN vessels and 8 for merchant navy or fishing.
The tonnage & type plus any registration number can be entered in the notes field. In the central block is the Captain’s name. If he is not on the crew list, create a record for him anyway. Bottom right on this front page is a small block showing how many people are ashore. Enter this in the notes as well. Sometimes names are given here. If they are and if they are not on the crew list – create records for them with the data you have.
If the returns give the ship’s position at sea, then try and fit it in the notes. If you don’t have room on the Captain’s record, then you can put it in one of the other records. The crew list page will have a folio number, but probably not a page number. The Civil Parish is usually given on the lead in page, which you may not have. You can always ask me, I might have it.
The aim is to extract all the information there is and fit it into our format. Imaginative use of notes is the order of the day!
Shipping returns are covered in the general instructions, but it is obvious that the information is not getting through.
Usually, ships have two types of pages; both should be photographed by the LDS. One is the crew list, which you treat just as you do any other page of returns, except that it usually has the Master’s signature on the bottom. This might be important if the Captain is not on board. It also has the ship’s name at the top, sometimes useful if you cannot read the name on the other page that should be photographed.
The second page is the schedule front page. We don’t see these pages normally because we are transcribing from the enumerator’s returns and these are the actual householder schedules. So the Captain’s signature is the genuine article. There is a lot of information (usually) on this page that can be extracted. The address is the ship’s name plus its home port, written as (Elizabeth) Fowey. Any schedule number will be at the top of the page and will be issued when the forms are picked up, probably in another port. The ED number is nearly always zero, but has a suffix, 2 for RN vessels and 8 for merchant navy or fishing.
The tonnage & type plus any registration number can be entered in the notes field. In the central block is the Captain’s name. If he is not on the crew list, create a record for him anyway. Bottom right on this front page is a small block showing how many people are ashore. Enter this in the notes as well. Sometimes names are given here. If they are and if they are not on the crew list – create records for them with the data you have.
If the returns give the ship’s position at sea, then try and fit it in the notes. If you don’t have room on the Captain’s record, then you can put it in one of the other records. The crew list page will have a folio number, but probably not a page number. The Civil Parish is usually given on the lead in page, which you may not have. You can always ask me, I might have it.
The aim is to extract all the information there is and fit it into our format. Imaginative use of notes is the order of the day!
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Things you might not know about Cornwall
1. The Duchy of Cornwall & the county of Cornwall are not the same thing. Most of the land owned by the Duchy is outside Cornwall.
2. The Prince of Wales does not own the Duchy, he holds it from The Crown because he is heir to the throne. He cannot touch the capital value, he gets the income. Most of this income is re-invested or used for "good works".
3. The Cornish do not pay for the Duchess of Cornwall's hats. The happy couple get no money from the taxpayers, Cornish or otherwise.
4. The only Cornish people who pay the Duchy anything are its tenant farmers. The Duchy has the reputation of being a progressive and caring landowner. The Prince is known as an enthusiast for sustainable farming.
5. All poverty is relative. There are poor people in Cornwall just as there are in Sidney. No one knows if the inhabitants of Cornwall that have Cornish blood are poorer than those without Cornish blood.
6. About 50% of the population of the county probably have Cornish blood. The only people who seem to have a problem about this are the "western ghetto-ists". The rest of us rub along quite happily.
7. Cornwall enjoys democracy; we have all sorts of elections. What these elections show is that the voters of Cornwall are conservative with a small c. They have elected Liberals as their representatives for a long time now and don't seem likely to change. The nationalist party, the MK, regularly polls low numbers.
8. The most noticeable thing about the Cornish is that they are just like the rest of the UK.
9. I think the Cornish share my view that we (UK, British, English or Cornish or from the planet Zog) should not atone or apologise for anything. Nor do we think Australians should give their country back to its original inhabitants.
10. The trouble with opinions is that they are just that - opinions.
2. The Prince of Wales does not own the Duchy, he holds it from The Crown because he is heir to the throne. He cannot touch the capital value, he gets the income. Most of this income is re-invested or used for "good works".
3. The Cornish do not pay for the Duchess of Cornwall's hats. The happy couple get no money from the taxpayers, Cornish or otherwise.
4. The only Cornish people who pay the Duchy anything are its tenant farmers. The Duchy has the reputation of being a progressive and caring landowner. The Prince is known as an enthusiast for sustainable farming.
5. All poverty is relative. There are poor people in Cornwall just as there are in Sidney. No one knows if the inhabitants of Cornwall that have Cornish blood are poorer than those without Cornish blood.
6. About 50% of the population of the county probably have Cornish blood. The only people who seem to have a problem about this are the "western ghetto-ists". The rest of us rub along quite happily.
7. Cornwall enjoys democracy; we have all sorts of elections. What these elections show is that the voters of Cornwall are conservative with a small c. They have elected Liberals as their representatives for a long time now and don't seem likely to change. The nationalist party, the MK, regularly polls low numbers.
8. The most noticeable thing about the Cornish is that they are just like the rest of the UK.
9. I think the Cornish share my view that we (UK, British, English or Cornish or from the planet Zog) should not atone or apologise for anything. Nor do we think Australians should give their country back to its original inhabitants.
10. The trouble with opinions is that they are just that - opinions.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Notes & Abbreviations
Notes:
The transcriber has two options for leaving notes. He or she can construct a text file called Mynotes, which will be viewed by the checker. In addition, there is a column in the spreadsheet, Y, which will hold 44 characters. This is my preferred option; by abbreviating where necessary, a lot can be got into 44 characters.
The checker sees both these lots of notes, but cannot delete or edit them. The validater sees the column “Y” notes and the checker’s notes. The checker can leave notes in the WINCC notes field. Both lots of notes trigger a stop for the validater. However, the validater does not see the Mynotes file, just that one existed.
During validation, the transcriber’s note field is transformed into the database notes field. This appears on both the COCP web pages and in the Free Census OLDB. The validator can delete, edit or add to this field as the fancy takes him, or her. Both transcribers and checkers are encouraged to leave notes; but please judge whether they are really worthwhile. What worthwhile means is entirely subjective – you have to make that decision.
Abbreviations:
A general rule on abbreviations is to remove the vowels first and see how it looks. The basic rule is – does it make sense? A secondary but important point – is does it look OK? Does it look neat or clumsy?
There are two main fields that use abbreviations – address and occupation. In the address field you should use the standard abbreviations such as Rd for Road.
In the occupation field you can have 29 characters. Start by removing vowels. You can use standard abbreviations such as Ag Lab and Dom Srvnt. Take a look at what you have ended up with and see if you think if it will make sense to the average researcher. A fairly common one is “Farmer of 200 acres employing 2 men and a boy”. This reduces down to” Frmr 200a emp 2 men 1 boy”. If necessary you can use the notes field to expand on what you entered in the occupation field.
You shouldn’t have to abbreviate personal names, but if you are pushed for space in the forename column, then use initials and expand them in the notes column.
The relationship field only allows for six characters. There is a table of suitable abbreviations in the Free Census field descriptions. An expanded table will be published by the COCP shortly.
Try and avoid abbreviating in the place of birth field. Better to split the information into two sensible bits and place one in the notes field.
Finally – take the time to browse the COCP online pages. The chances are that someone else has already encountered the problem you are struggling with.
The transcriber has two options for leaving notes. He or she can construct a text file called Mynotes, which will be viewed by the checker. In addition, there is a column in the spreadsheet, Y, which will hold 44 characters. This is my preferred option; by abbreviating where necessary, a lot can be got into 44 characters.
The checker sees both these lots of notes, but cannot delete or edit them. The validater sees the column “Y” notes and the checker’s notes. The checker can leave notes in the WINCC notes field. Both lots of notes trigger a stop for the validater. However, the validater does not see the Mynotes file, just that one existed.
During validation, the transcriber’s note field is transformed into the database notes field. This appears on both the COCP web pages and in the Free Census OLDB. The validator can delete, edit or add to this field as the fancy takes him, or her. Both transcribers and checkers are encouraged to leave notes; but please judge whether they are really worthwhile. What worthwhile means is entirely subjective – you have to make that decision.
Abbreviations:
A general rule on abbreviations is to remove the vowels first and see how it looks. The basic rule is – does it make sense? A secondary but important point – is does it look OK? Does it look neat or clumsy?
There are two main fields that use abbreviations – address and occupation. In the address field you should use the standard abbreviations such as Rd for Road.
In the occupation field you can have 29 characters. Start by removing vowels. You can use standard abbreviations such as Ag Lab and Dom Srvnt. Take a look at what you have ended up with and see if you think if it will make sense to the average researcher. A fairly common one is “Farmer of 200 acres employing 2 men and a boy”. This reduces down to” Frmr 200a emp 2 men 1 boy”. If necessary you can use the notes field to expand on what you entered in the occupation field.
You shouldn’t have to abbreviate personal names, but if you are pushed for space in the forename column, then use initials and expand them in the notes column.
The relationship field only allows for six characters. There is a table of suitable abbreviations in the Free Census field descriptions. An expanded table will be published by the COCP shortly.
Try and avoid abbreviating in the place of birth field. Better to split the information into two sensible bits and place one in the notes field.
Finally – take the time to browse the COCP online pages. The chances are that someone else has already encountered the problem you are struggling with.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Post Validation
Free Census was originally intended to have three stages, transcription, checking and validation. After Validation, the final file would be cleared for upload, after a final check by the uploader. Who was the man running the whole project - it was very much a one-man band in those days.
However, when the first validated files appeared after a couple of years, it was obvious that Plan A would not work. So a Cornish volunteer, Rick Parsons, produced FCtools, a diagnostic programme. It has a variety of uses, one of which is to turn the final zip back into a spreadsheet and check it for errors. This is the sort of thing that you get:
Warning: row 63, page number = 4 not sequential
Warning: row 95, possibly too many lines on page 4
Warning: row 128, consecutive schedule numbers (30) are the same
Warning: row 663, schedule number = 19 not sequential
Warning: row 883, consecutive schedule numbers (78) are the same
Warning: row 1004, consecutive schedule numbers (112) are the same
Warning: row 1012, schedule number = 192 not sequential
Warning: row 1013, schedule number = 116 not sequential
Warning: row 1144, consecutive schedule numbers (146) are the same
Warning: row 1311, birth place = Willesden N 3 contains unusual characters
Warning: row 1312, birth place = Willesden N 3 contains unusual characters
Warning: row 1630, schedule number = 23 not sequential
Warning: row 2012, schedule number = 1 not sequential
Error: row 2987, field too long, truncated
Error: row 2991, field too long, truncated
Error: row 2996, field too long, truncated
Error: row 3004, field too long, truncated
Error: row 3009, field too long, truncated
Warning: row 3009, consecutive schedule numbers (91) are the same
Error: row 3010, field too long, truncated
Error: row 3013, field too long, truncated
Warning: row 3779, birth place = Walworth S1 contains unusual characters
Warning: row 3844, Head of household is not the first entry in the schedule
Warning: row 4410, possibly too many lines on page 13
Warning: row 4443, possibly too many lines on page 14
Warning: row 4619, first page of ED = 20
Warning: row 4619, first schedule of ED = 119
Warning: row 4956, schedule number = 8 not sequential
Warning: row 4957, schedule number = 85 not sequential
Warning: row 4958, schedule number = 140 not sequential
Warning: row 5122, consecutive schedule numbers (20) are the same
Warning: row 5431, consecutive schedule numbers (71) are the same
Warning: row 5617, consecutive schedule numbers (113) are the same
Warning: row 5649, possibly too many lines on page 20
Warning: row 5898, consecutive schedule numbers (169) are the same
Warning: row 5961, possibly too many lines on page 30
The post-validation involves correcting these errors, if in fact they are errors. It also involves eye-balling the data, because there are some things that, although incorrect, are not picked up by the software. In the case of the COCP returns, FCTools is also the means of producing the html. This gives us the opportunity for a final check; when the html is eye-balled for errors. Some elements have to be introduced by hand at this stage; including the credits for the transcribers and checkers.
The html file goes off to the COCP web pages; the validation file is uploaded to Free Census. We have now uploaded over a million records to the OLDB and about 1.2 million to our own web pages.
Amazing! And it has only taken five years.....
However, when the first validated files appeared after a couple of years, it was obvious that Plan A would not work. So a Cornish volunteer, Rick Parsons, produced FCtools, a diagnostic programme. It has a variety of uses, one of which is to turn the final zip back into a spreadsheet and check it for errors. This is the sort of thing that you get:
Warning: row 63, page number = 4 not sequential
Warning: row 95, possibly too many lines on page 4
Warning: row 128, consecutive schedule numbers (30) are the same
Warning: row 663, schedule number = 19 not sequential
Warning: row 883, consecutive schedule numbers (78) are the same
Warning: row 1004, consecutive schedule numbers (112) are the same
Warning: row 1012, schedule number = 192 not sequential
Warning: row 1013, schedule number = 116 not sequential
Warning: row 1144, consecutive schedule numbers (146) are the same
Warning: row 1311, birth place = Willesden N 3 contains unusual characters
Warning: row 1312, birth place = Willesden N 3 contains unusual characters
Warning: row 1630, schedule number = 23 not sequential
Warning: row 2012, schedule number = 1 not sequential
Error: row 2987, field too long
Error: row 2991, field too long
Error: row 2996, field too long
Error: row 3004, field too long
Error: row 3009, field too long
Warning: row 3009, consecutive schedule numbers (91) are the same
Error: row 3010, field too long
Error: row 3013, field too long
Warning: row 3779, birth place = Walworth S1 contains unusual characters
Warning: row 3844, Head of household is not the first entry in the schedule
Warning: row 4410, possibly too many lines on page 13
Warning: row 4443, possibly too many lines on page 14
Warning: row 4619, first page of ED = 20
Warning: row 4619, first schedule of ED = 119
Warning: row 4956, schedule number = 8 not sequential
Warning: row 4957, schedule number = 85 not sequential
Warning: row 4958, schedule number = 140 not sequential
Warning: row 5122, consecutive schedule numbers (20) are the same
Warning: row 5431, consecutive schedule numbers (71) are the same
Warning: row 5617, consecutive schedule numbers (113) are the same
Warning: row 5649, possibly too many lines on page 20
Warning: row 5898, consecutive schedule numbers (169) are the same
Warning: row 5961, possibly too many lines on page 30
The post-validation involves correcting these errors, if in fact they are errors. It also involves eye-balling the data, because there are some things that, although incorrect, are not picked up by the software. In the case of the COCP returns, FCTools is also the means of producing the html. This gives us the opportunity for a final check; when the html is eye-balled for errors. Some elements have to be introduced by hand at this stage; including the credits for the transcribers and checkers.
The html file goes off to the COCP web pages; the validation file is uploaded to Free Census. We have now uploaded over a million records to the OLDB and about 1.2 million to our own web pages.
Amazing! And it has only taken five years.....
Friday, December 30, 2005
Validation
In the original plan, Validation was the third and final stage. However, it is in fact the penultimate stage and is followed by post-validation. This note covers both.
When a corrected zip arrives back, I load it into Valdrev, and run it against the images. Unlike checking, I do not have to view every line, but only those on which Valdrev stops.
Valdrev stops for:
1. Alerts, either inserted by the checker, or inserted by the transcriber and not resolved by the checker.
2. Records that have notes left by the transcriber or the checker, but not those contained in the transcriber’s Mynotes file. I do not see those, although Valdrev does stop.
3. County or place of birth names that do not exist as far as the geographical database GENIE is concerned.
From this you can see that if the transcriber leaves lots of notes, I get lots of stops. During validation I edit the notes left by transcribers. Usually, I delete them, but sometimes I retain them, edit them or add to them or insert new ones – as the fancy takes me! If Chapman codes for the Irish or Scottish counties have not been used, I get stops on all those. In the original plan, it was thought that the validation process would be pretty quick, with stops every hundred or so records. Like many things, this didn’t work out and stops are only too frequent.
The main problem is that the geographical database GENIE is limited in size and it doesn’t hold many perfectly good place names. In general, I pass all place names that are “as is”. I do not avail myself of the validater’s option to put in the modern or corrected names.
At the end of this process, I pack for uploading; in theory, this output file could be uploaded. But in practice, we know that there are a lot of errors still in the file, invisible during validation. The file is, therefore, loaded into FCTools. This is a diagnostic tool that identifies errors and gives warnings of possible problems.
FCTools produces a list of errors and a spreadsheet. As well as making the corrections indicated by FCTools, the opportunity its taken to “eyeball” the spreadsheet. It is surprising how many minor errors jump out and hit you in the eye! Once it as good as it can be, two files are produced. The validation file is uploaded to the Online DataBase (OLDB) and to the Mormon’s Great Granite Cave in Utah. The html file is sent to our web site.
When a corrected zip arrives back, I load it into Valdrev, and run it against the images. Unlike checking, I do not have to view every line, but only those on which Valdrev stops.
Valdrev stops for:
1. Alerts, either inserted by the checker, or inserted by the transcriber and not resolved by the checker.
2. Records that have notes left by the transcriber or the checker, but not those contained in the transcriber’s Mynotes file. I do not see those, although Valdrev does stop.
3. County or place of birth names that do not exist as far as the geographical database GENIE is concerned.
From this you can see that if the transcriber leaves lots of notes, I get lots of stops. During validation I edit the notes left by transcribers. Usually, I delete them, but sometimes I retain them, edit them or add to them or insert new ones – as the fancy takes me! If Chapman codes for the Irish or Scottish counties have not been used, I get stops on all those. In the original plan, it was thought that the validation process would be pretty quick, with stops every hundred or so records. Like many things, this didn’t work out and stops are only too frequent.
The main problem is that the geographical database GENIE is limited in size and it doesn’t hold many perfectly good place names. In general, I pass all place names that are “as is”. I do not avail myself of the validater’s option to put in the modern or corrected names.
At the end of this process, I pack for uploading; in theory, this output file could be uploaded. But in practice, we know that there are a lot of errors still in the file, invisible during validation. The file is, therefore, loaded into FCTools. This is a diagnostic tool that identifies errors and gives warnings of possible problems.
FCTools produces a list of errors and a spreadsheet. As well as making the corrections indicated by FCTools, the opportunity its taken to “eyeball” the spreadsheet. It is surprising how many minor errors jump out and hit you in the eye! Once it as good as it can be, two files are produced. The validation file is uploaded to the Online DataBase (OLDB) and to the Mormon’s Great Granite Cave in Utah. The html file is sent to our web site.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
What does a checker do?
As you know, I constantly witter on about this being a system and we being a team. So this is all about those strange creatures (to transcribers) who are checkers.
In an ideal world, checkers would be people who had done some transcribing. As it is not an ideal world, many checkers have not done any. Some of the most successful have just done one transcription and have probably forgotten what they learnt.
Starting up a checker is a little more complicated than getting a transcriber underway. However, if the instructions are followed, it can be done. The software is downloaded from the Free Census web site and is known as WINCC. The checker gets a zipped data file by email and loads it into the software. The task is then to go through the data, line by line, and compare it to the returns on the fiche. I cannot make the checkers look at each line and it is possible to just tab and save your way through the whole thing. I have had one or two people who appear to have done just that.
The checker should attempt to identify the transcriber’s mistakes AND correct them. This latter might seem pretty obvious – but isn’t to some people. The software enables the checker to do lots of interesting things including inserting people;complete households; or even whole pages. They can split up households and join people to households. They can alter the header data and leave lots of interesting little notes for the validater.
The checker should attempt to solve any flagged up records left by the transcriber. They can leave them for the validator and they can also flag items themselves. Of course, it is just as possible for a checker to be wrong as it is for the transcriber. However, I do not second guess checker’s decisions – well, not often. They can see the evidence and what the transcriber thought – I want them to make a decision. Flagging up the query or letting a query through is OK with me – but I would rather they sorted it out before it gets to me.
A well transcribed piece is easy to check; but as we are all human, most transcribed pieces are full of errors. The system will take care of them if we all operate it properly. Sometimes the checkers get nightmare pieces with virtually every record requiring a correction. Usually, these are repetitious mistakes and easy to correct. But each correction involves a number of key strokes or mouse clicks and it can become very boring to do ten mouse clicks for each of 5000 records!
At the end of the process the software produces another zipped file. The name has changed from censXXXX to ZZZZyyyy. This zipped file is emailed to the validater, who stuffs it into a third piece of software. You’ll have to wait for the next installment to find out about that.
In an ideal world, checkers would be people who had done some transcribing. As it is not an ideal world, many checkers have not done any. Some of the most successful have just done one transcription and have probably forgotten what they learnt.
Starting up a checker is a little more complicated than getting a transcriber underway. However, if the instructions are followed, it can be done. The software is downloaded from the Free Census web site and is known as WINCC. The checker gets a zipped data file by email and loads it into the software. The task is then to go through the data, line by line, and compare it to the returns on the fiche. I cannot make the checkers look at each line and it is possible to just tab and save your way through the whole thing. I have had one or two people who appear to have done just that.
The checker should attempt to identify the transcriber’s mistakes AND correct them. This latter might seem pretty obvious – but isn’t to some people. The software enables the checker to do lots of interesting things including inserting people;complete households; or even whole pages. They can split up households and join people to households. They can alter the header data and leave lots of interesting little notes for the validater.
The checker should attempt to solve any flagged up records left by the transcriber. They can leave them for the validator and they can also flag items themselves. Of course, it is just as possible for a checker to be wrong as it is for the transcriber. However, I do not second guess checker’s decisions – well, not often. They can see the evidence and what the transcriber thought – I want them to make a decision. Flagging up the query or letting a query through is OK with me – but I would rather they sorted it out before it gets to me.
A well transcribed piece is easy to check; but as we are all human, most transcribed pieces are full of errors. The system will take care of them if we all operate it properly. Sometimes the checkers get nightmare pieces with virtually every record requiring a correction. Usually, these are repetitious mistakes and easy to correct. But each correction involves a number of key strokes or mouse clicks and it can become very boring to do ten mouse clicks for each of 5000 records!
At the end of the process the software produces another zipped file. The name has changed from censXXXX to ZZZZyyyy. This zipped file is emailed to the validater, who stuffs it into a third piece of software. You’ll have to wait for the next installment to find out about that.
Monday, December 19, 2005
What do Transcribers do?
This is a note for those people about to start, or for people who might volunteer and for checkers who have not done any transcribing.
Nowadays, we are all working from discs. Many of our volunteers have bought their own, but we can now supply free discs, courtesy of the LDS. A new transcriber is allocated a piece or a group of parishes and a lot of information. There are help files with the software and FAQ and other things on the main Free Census web site. Everyone gets a lengthy piece written by me and there are also “hints’ pages on the web site. In spite of this, questions still arise and transcribers and checkers still come across new problems.
I am not complaining about this, for many volunteers this is a completely new field; they haven’t transcribed census returns before and they haven’t got much experience with computers or the the internet. It constantly amazes me how much we are achieving given our wide geographical spread and our inexperience. It is also a fact that the enumerators of the 19th century had many and varied ideas on how they should carry out their task. As the census taking was organised by the government, the instructions to the enumerators were confused and confusing and sometimes downright contradictory.
The original project software is WINCENS. It started off as a DOS programme and was then changed into a Windows programme. It is still DOS of course, under the Windows interface, and transcribers will occasionally see the black DOS screens. However, we are using an alternative to WINCENS - SSCENS.
Because many people did not like the WINCENS programme, especially its inability to allow people to retrace their steps and edit the data, we introduced SSCENS. This is just a spreadsheet with knobs on. But it does allow editing and people can look at a page in its entirety; can look at a whole document. If the rules of SSCens are followed, then this spreadsheet can be converted into a format that will work with the checking software, WINCC. Any spreadsheet will do, although most people seem to be using Excel. It does not matter what platform you are using or which version of Windows. Anybody using an Apple should contact me as I am an Apple user.
A transcriber should aim to combine speed with accuracy. This is a system; transcription, checking and validation. A transcriber should not spend hours on trying to decipher one surname. Give it your best shot and move on. If you cannot resolve a problem, flag it up as a query; leave a note if you think it will help.
On completion, a transcriber should email us their completed spreadsheet. You should try and reformat the file as .csv, but if you can’t, then send it as it is. The SSCENS spreadsheet is reformatted for input into the next stage – checking.
Nowadays, we are all working from discs. Many of our volunteers have bought their own, but we can now supply free discs, courtesy of the LDS. A new transcriber is allocated a piece or a group of parishes and a lot of information. There are help files with the software and FAQ and other things on the main Free Census web site. Everyone gets a lengthy piece written by me and there are also “hints’ pages on the web site. In spite of this, questions still arise and transcribers and checkers still come across new problems.
I am not complaining about this, for many volunteers this is a completely new field; they haven’t transcribed census returns before and they haven’t got much experience with computers or the the internet. It constantly amazes me how much we are achieving given our wide geographical spread and our inexperience. It is also a fact that the enumerators of the 19th century had many and varied ideas on how they should carry out their task. As the census taking was organised by the government, the instructions to the enumerators were confused and confusing and sometimes downright contradictory.
The original project software is WINCENS. It started off as a DOS programme and was then changed into a Windows programme. It is still DOS of course, under the Windows interface, and transcribers will occasionally see the black DOS screens. However, we are using an alternative to WINCENS - SSCENS.
Because many people did not like the WINCENS programme, especially its inability to allow people to retrace their steps and edit the data, we introduced SSCENS. This is just a spreadsheet with knobs on. But it does allow editing and people can look at a page in its entirety; can look at a whole document. If the rules of SSCens are followed, then this spreadsheet can be converted into a format that will work with the checking software, WINCC. Any spreadsheet will do, although most people seem to be using Excel. It does not matter what platform you are using or which version of Windows. Anybody using an Apple should contact me as I am an Apple user.
A transcriber should aim to combine speed with accuracy. This is a system; transcription, checking and validation. A transcriber should not spend hours on trying to decipher one surname. Give it your best shot and move on. If you cannot resolve a problem, flag it up as a query; leave a note if you think it will help.
On completion, a transcriber should email us their completed spreadsheet. You should try and reformat the file as .csv, but if you can’t, then send it as it is. The SSCENS spreadsheet is reformatted for input into the next stage – checking.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
