USGenWeb Free Census Project Help, Notes for you to keep while working on your transcription
These things are very important in getting your transcription completed correctly and online quickly.
ALL entries on the census that are blank are to remain blank on your transcriptions. With the exception of these, these columns must always be filled in even if they are blank on the census record.
State
Year
County
Supervisor's District
Enumeration District
Enumerator
Date of the Enumeration
Line #
Household # or Dwelling #
Family #
Surname
Given name
In the event that a Household is unoccupied, please fill in the previous mentioned information (except family #) and also include UNOCCUPIED in the place where the surname goes.
Please do NOT correct misspellings, or add a full name where it is listed as an abbreviation. Example, If WM Brown is listed on the census then he should be listed that way on the transcription as well.
A lot of Census takers liked using the word (Ditto), or (DO) or (" ) to show that the information in the column is the same as the information in the previous column. Please do not use these marks or words, please place the information in the column instead. You will see alot of this in the State of Birth or Occupations.
You are welcome to make a separate file for your notes, such as large areas of text that there is no place for in the census transcription tools (please indicate the page number and include the text that the census enumerator put on that page), and what ever other comments you would like added. This will be a separate file called notes.txt that will be in the directory with your completed transcription.
