Board: Message Boards > Localities > North America > United States > States > Ohio > Counties > Licking URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.ohio.counties.licking/2088.2.1/mb .ashx Subject: Re: Census Transcription Author: dedmod1 Date: Sunday, January 05, 2003 Classification: Query Surnames:
I agree with what you say, but I'm not asking for creation of a fault free database, but one which can be used to trace ones way through the existing maze of data. If you have a Mary Green age 1 in the 1880 Licking Co. Census wouldn't it be nice to be able to turn to the same Mary Green in the 1890 and 1900 censuses without having to search through 30-60 pages of census sheets, even assuming the family stayed put in the same township? And if someone knows who this Mary married wouldn't it be nice to be told just where to look in 1910, 1920 and 1930? Even if there's some doubt between 2 or three potential husbands, listing them in the notes for this Mary Green would allow one to quickly find them and see which one fits information you've previously had. And my point is precisely that one doesn't have to do an entire area by ones self. A relatively few individuals can take on a limited area and create a set of page transcriptions. A person could take charge of the output and combine it into one set for each census and then the fun begins as people report the links they know. The initial links would be Census year => State => County => Township => [ ED ] => page => family. If a family is found to be the same in two consecutative censuses the link up or down is made initially by noting the location of the family in the other census. After a large number of such links are made, including information from other sources which are noted (Marriage to Fred Ashbrook 18 Apr 1906 - Newark Court house records + location of Fred Ashbrook in that or another Census), then a compler combines all of them into a master database leaving the initial node for the first census a family head appears in and noting the census location for other years and for descendents. A major undertaking, yes, but it would only have to be done once for all time. Thereafter volunteers could be in charge of verifying changes and additions Now, as I said, this can be done starting at the lowest level, the township or enumeration district and then larger groupings can be combined as desired. Assuming that any known linkages outside the township are already in the individual township records, it's a simple matter for a county coordinator to scan through and link up the data. OK, I'm probably oversimplifying, but I'm still just at the overview / think-it-out stage.
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