There was and is a rule that everybody in the household should be listed which caused problems–such as a young couple who married after the official date–they were living with his parents–so they listed their son but assumed the daughter-in-law would be listed with her parents as that was where she was on the official date-- her parents didn’t list her–flip side of that a girl was visiting relatives in Mo-- she ended up being counted with the relative and with her parents in PA
Neither of the above example are relevant to what the poster is asking for. The poster want to avoid type in a date for the census. He instead wants to type in UK 1841 in the date field and have it instantly populate with 1 Jan 1841 or whatever the date was for the year because he doesn’t want to have to look it up. Unlike the UK census, the US census can have ranges of dates spanning as much as a few weeks, so I guess we got used to typing full dates, or in my case, I only type the year.
Hi Nancy,
As they say “Life wasn’t meant to be easy” but we researchers just do the best we can with the data we find. If in doubt I just add a note “This may be incorrect” or words to that effect. I am surprised at the number of Profiles in Ancestry that are so blatantly incorrect but the creator of them makes no attempt to correct them. Oh well, that’s their problem, and I’ll just keep plugging along.
Keep smiling.
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I am surprised by the number of people griping about the number of people with faulty data and by extention spouting how bad Ancestry is. In my opinion, this proves that the person doing the griping really is not using Ancestry to its best and fullest extent. The main value of Ancestry is the records that they upload, not the trees. In the case of the trees, the value there is the occasional person that does answer your message. There have been more than a few times when I accused someone of being wrong, however they proved that I was the wrong one because I had misinterpreted something. Granted, the responders are few and far between but in a way this is good. People should not be pulling down masses of data from Ancestry and including it in their tree. If they clue in tot he fact there is wrong data, maybe they will be more careful when adding stuff. I doubt it but I can hope…
I still think Ancestry and FS linking was the worst thing RM could possibly have done, other than version 8.
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Kfunk,
That is the difference between “name collectors” and genealogists. RM’s ability to download reams of data (does electronic data even come in reams?) is leading scores of people into believing they are doing actual genealogical research when they aren’t. If I had turned in a paper in high school or college using this type of research methodology, I would have received an “F” for plagiarizing, but if all you want is a db with thousands of names going back to Charlemagne, or one of the mythical kings, or even Adam and Eve, RM/Ancestry is the perfect tool.
Compiled trees is the first part of the research cycle. They have their purpose. From compiled trees you flesh it out with records. There’s a reason genetic genealogist can identify a person in a couple hours. They start with compiled trees.
There is no doubt that compiled trees have their purpose however for way too many, they are the start and end of the research. Programs such as RM and FTM help make this easy for people to ‘collect’ relatives instead of moving on with identifying proof. If people hand to look at and enter material manually, they may be a little more aware of discrepancies and other issues that pop up. I doubt it, but some call me an optimist!
I spend a lot of time in my local Family History Center and I overhear a lot of people talking. It would likely shock and scare you how many people have no idea of how to research anything if it is not on Ancestry, FS, MyHeritage or the other sites. In one case, a person claiming that they could not find a birth record for someone, here in Iowa, was absolutely astonished that I found it in a couple of minutes because I knew that FS has filmed the record books from that period and that they were not indexed so they didn’t show in searches. This goes to show that it never crossed the person’s mind to contact the county of birth. They just assumed that if it wasn’t ‘online’ it must not exist. Granted, the person likely didn’t know the ledger books were microfilmed, but that shouldn’t have prevented them from contacting a county to see if the records even existed.
YES I realize that–I was actually replying to a couple of items that thejerrybryan had made on the census ( if you look careful they are several posts that have nothing to do with the feature request) BUT after you posted the above remark, BOMOROB posted a nice reply to me and just happened to mention Ancestry’s failure and you replied to the Ancestry remark and there are now 3 additional posts that have nothing to do with the feature request-- That’s funny!!!
BOMOROB__ THANKS for the nice post
Doesn’t matter who you replied too, it still had nothing to do with the original post, not even as a response to Jerry. BOMOROB is incorrect in his assertion that it is an Ancestry failure. It is actually his failure for using Ancestry in a way that makes absolutely no sense…see my reply to him. When one does stupid things, one gets stupid results…and that is not the fault of the tools.
What started out as a simple request re census dates has deteriorated into an unnecessary online debate. So here goes my tuppeny worth. I am Robin Almond of Bomaderry in NSW, OZ, I am 83 and a reluctant widower. My late wife, Pam, started the family research the “hard” way back in the 1980’s and manually created a mass of data, wrote hundreds of letters, visited cemeteries in the UK and here in OZ, and it was not until I learned how to use a computer, downloaded RM back in 2006, subscribed to Ancestry in about 2010 and to Scotlandspeople, FindMyPast, etc. that we were able to put the jigsaw of data to create our Family Trees. I am no expert and find modern technology quite a challenge. I research each name using all sources and do not use another researcher’s finding without a lot of checking. More later.
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Continuing my tuppeny worth. I print out everything remotely useful and study each document and if I find an error will always submit a correction so that others aren’t lead astray. I also contact those whose Trees are “blighted” and politely point out the error and give them a chance to discuss it with me. Often it works, sometimes it’s ignored. Kfunk says I do stupid things and I use Ancestry in a way that makes no sense - his opinion and not worth debating.
I became a member of the Guild of One-Name studies 2 years ago to concentrate on the surname ALMOND but gave up a month ago finding it way beyond my ageing ability but my study is now in Legacy with the GOONS for anyone who wishes to take over the name and I am about to send over my late wife’s research papers to a member studying the surname YOXALL/YORK.
Finally, RM has 72 options in Fact Types none of which are removeable, gives you the Lat/Long data for Places - unneccessary- and as yet won’t comment on my suggestion for Census dates.
Now I’m going back to my daily search for those missing jigsaw pieces. Happy New Year to all researchers, stupid or otherwise.
Robin
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