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I recently found that somebody had attached incorrect parents to my deceased grandfather on Family Search. I was surprised at how annoyed I was. The correct parents were already attached, and he just added a second pair of parents.
When I contacted the person who had made the change, to his credit he did respond to me. He explained that he knew my grandfather's mother's last name but not her first name, so he just put her first name as "F" for female. Who does that?! And he put her married name in as her last name, rather than her birth name. and had these two people getting married the year prior to my grandfather's birth. I asked him where he got the marriage date "I assumed it was a year prior to the birth of their son". Good grief, no wonder errors multiply! (the real parents married 4 years after the birth of my grandfather)
He did not change the information after I informed him that as a grandchild, I was very knowledgeable of the people involved, and the information THAT WAS ALREADY THERE was accurate. He didn't change it, so after a week, I went in and deleted all of his erroneous work. I found his user name on the site; it appears he was working with LDS on "temple work" adding names. He's no relation.
I recently found that somebody had attached incorrect parents to my deceased grandfather on Family Search. I was surprised at how annoyed I was. The correct parents were already attached, and he just added a second pair of parents.
When I contacted the person who had made the change, to his credit he did respond to me. He explained that he knew my grandfather's mother's last name but not her first name, so he just put her first name as "F" for female. Who does that?! And he put her married name in as her last name, rather than her birth name. and had these two people getting married the year prior to my grandfather's birth. I asked him where he got the marriage date "I assumed it was a year prior to the birth of their son". Good grief, no wonder errors multiply! (the real parents married 4 years after the birth of my grandfather)
He did not change the information after I informed him that as a grandchild, I was very knowledgeable of the people involved, and the information THAT WAS ALREADY THERE was accurate. He didn't change it, so after a week, I went in and deleted all of his erroneous work. I found his user name on the site; it appears he was working with LDS on "temple work" adding names. He's no relation.
I ran into that once on Ancestry. It’s one of the reasons why I almost always refuse to use other peoples Tresa‘s information. This one guy had great references he was a really good source for real information. But he absolutely insisted on listing women by their married names instead of their maiden names as daughters. So instead of Sally Smith Jeanne Smith Cindy Smith, he’s listing them as Sallie Jones Jeanne Forstner and Cindy Bellini. That’s just not how you do it. And somehow I screwed up and all of mine changed. And what’s with the weird all the whole last names have to be capitalized thing? It’s so annoying.
To make it worse, he was doing it on the ancestor with 25 children. After I fixed everything, that was when I made the decision everybody else’s trees are verboten. Absolutely not allowed.
I had a certain disrespect for the census takers, but in retrospect many folks were illiterate back in the day. It can hardly be the census taker's fault if a child ages 15 years between censuses, or if an individual's name is recorded as Purcell, and then years later as Price.
Census takers record what they're told. I've worked on the census in 2010 and 2020 both as an enumerator and supervising enumerators. There is no interpretation and certainly no foreknowledge of what anyone should say to satisfy future genealogists. It's simply a record of what respondents say, then and now.
Census takers record what they're told. I've worked on the census in 2010 and 2020 both as an enumerator and supervising enumerators. There is no interpretation and certainly no foreknowledge of what anyone should say to satisfy future genealogists. It's simply a record of what respondents say, then and now.
While thats true, with regard to census records of the past you have to acknowledge that the census takers were not necessarily any more literate than the population at large and frequently misspelled names.
Or, the person they interviewed was like my grandfather. My mother was the only girl in the family for many years. As a result they called her Sister. Like a nickname. When the census taker came, my grandfather was flummoxed, he didn’t have a name to give the enumerator because he could not remember my mom’s name. So he used his mothers name.
I cannot tell you how many people look up that census and ask me who is Emma? And I have to explain this story.
That's hilarious, but my ex-husband had an Uncle Brother. He was actually Freeman Lastname, Jr., but he had always been called Brother by the parents and siblings, and my ex knew him as Uncle Brother. The funny part was that my ex didn't know what Uncle Brother's real name was. I had to ask his mother.
A friend of mine was a late-life youngest of five. Her much-older brother was Ray McWhatever, Jr., but everyone called him Mickey. She answered the phone once when she was twelve, and a potential employer asked for Ray McWhatever, and she gave the phone to her father. That was when she learned that her brother's name was not really Mickey.
Census takers record what they're told. I've worked on the census in 2010 and 2020 both as an enumerator and supervising enumerators. There is no interpretation and certainly no foreknowledge of what anyone should say to satisfy future genealogists. It's simply a record of what respondents say, then and now.
So we agree. Got it.
Did census takers always enter names correctly? Doubt it.
I will state, for the record, that I probably would have had few problems with the 2010 and 2020 censuses, should I have lived long enough to have seen them.
Last edited by JustPassinThru; 11-29-2021 at 10:39 AM..
Did census takers always enter names correctly? Doubt it.
Of course not, the census is taken for demographic purposes, not for identification, and not for genealogy. Exact names and spellings were not a priority. It actually has less to do with illiteracy than many people think (and illiteracy rates were often lower than most people think).
While thats true, with regard to census records of the past you have to acknowledge that the census takers were not necessarily any more literate than the population at large and frequently misspelled names.
Not to be contrary, but i don't have to acknowledge anything. Census takers may have been much more literate than the average person in some locations which would be why they were hired as enumerators! OTOH there are tests for 8th graders in the 1800s that today's average students couldn't pass. I've seen such tests online in years past.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JustPassinThru
So we agree. Got it.
Did census takers always enter names correctly? Doubt it.
I will state, for the record, that I probably would have had few problems with the 2010 and 2020 censuses, should I have lived long enough to have seen them.
Sometimes census takers entered things phonetically. That's why there's aunt Eller for aunt Ella. Again they record what they're told. There were times as an enumerator I was pretty sure I was being lied to by the respondent, but it wasn't my job to question their accuracy. Rather it was simply to record the information they gave.
If we should live to the years 2082 and 2092 we can compare and discuss further.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PA2UK
Of course not, the census is taken for demographic purposes, not for identification, and not for genealogy. Exact names and spellings were not a priority. It actually has less to do with illiteracy than many people think (and illiteracy rates were often lower than most people think).
True that. The records are extremely helpful for genealogy, but they're mostly available because they're public records, paid for by taxpayers.
This IS my lane. If it were my great grandparents and she added a bunch of b.s. I wouldn't care. But my parents? I'll try to be nice and point out the obvious error. Some people are just dumb as a rock.
I add notes to people on my tree, laying out the sources proving my data and disproving others. Then I add a statement telling other researchers to feel free to message me if they disagree. I've yet to receive a squawk.
The Federal Census is a boon to researchers, but it's not without some problems, evidenced by your humorous story.
Gosh is it--I think it's the 1900 Census that is especially helpful; if I'm remembering correctly it gives the number of children for the mother and the number living. Those censuses have been so extremely helpful in fleshing out family trees for me; those and detailed obituaries I've found to be most helpful in my research.
Man do I feel the OP's irritation at incorrect trees. I know that there's a ton of amateurs out there (like me!) but I wish like somehow the little icon for each person in the tree can be color-coded to indicate if the person is very sure about that ancestor or if they're just copying and pasting and not really checking for documentation. I try to find concrete documentation from other people's trees regarding their ancestors but most of what I find is just that they took it from other people's trees and when I check those trees they often don't have a concrete connection. Some paperwork would give me a marriage record, but I think well the names are usually very common how can they be sure it's that specific couple? And things that just don't show a direct link, like I'm trying to find out an ancestor's parent, so it gives a marriage record but that doesn't show me a linkage to the parent of that person. It's just frustrating.
It seems to me that you really can't get much further back beyond the 1700s unless you have personal papers; much of the public documents out there don't exist anymore--have been lost or maybe never existed in the first place. Unless you can tie into a famous person (which some people have made incredulous leaps--such as a story I love to share about one guy's tree who had--man, I forget her name, it's too early in the am for me to think clearly--some noble woman marrying a Dutch peasant and the line continuing down from there. Okay--I realize its possible, but if you're going to make that statement *please* have some kind of notation backing it up like "Hey this is family history I received directly from my great-grandmother" or something).
As far as the sensitivity issue for the OP, I don't know. I would think I wouldn't be too sensitive about it, but that's me. Now my parents are still living (at the moment, but my father's in not-so-great health); I think I'd get an "Oh, that's odd" comment flit through my mind if one day I saw my parent's as ancestors in someone's tree but they had the info incorrect. I think I would definitely send that person a note explaining the accurate information. I would imagine they would be thankful to get it from me. I probably have a few inaccurate things in my tree (from other people who have posted inaccurate information on their tree) so I would be just thrilled to death to get something from someone which would point out wrong information and supply me with the correct stuff instead. How helpful would that be! In my opinion this is being really helpful to the person who had the wrong info, so if they get offended by it, then there's something wrong with them and and not the person supplying them with the right information.
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Solly says — Be nice!
Census takers may have been much more literate than the average person in some locations which would be why they were hired as enumerators! 
OTOH there are tests for 8th graders in the 1800s that today's average students couldn't pass. I've seen such tests online in years past.
