1911 CENSUS (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Sunday, May 13, 2012, 02:26 (4580 days ago) @ m p griffiths

Hi MPG,
Thanks for your reply and helpful information which is very interesting. In fact I'm only visiting the Forum having spent the last few hours downloading 1911 Census forms, and I'm afraid I have two questions which relate to points you mention.

1. Yes I agree in principle that the accuracy of the transcription should be better than previous Census releases, especially as the forms are a more spacious format and are perhaps in better physical condition than earlier ones. As you have far higher experience than me reading them, plus your knowledge of their process, I can only bow to your belief that in the main they are generally more accurate. However that isn't my impression at all.

eg this evening I've searched out seven forms only in practise for tomorrow's "Big Push". I try not to read too much to save time during the free download period. However I've just read a Monmouthshire Census form for Chepstow which has been transcribed (ie the tabulated entry shown below the actual image) to read the following places of birth against two brothers only 2 years apart in age: "Heryard Vonachurch" and below that "Henfield Conchurch". Both sets of neat albeit joined handwriting clearly show the exact same words, very easily read as "Hereford" (a local county city of course, not obscure village) and "Kenderchurch" (less obvious but barely over the County boundary and still on the Wye). One of the brothers has been named "Herry" instead of the easily read & I'd have thought more likely Henry.

I estimate in my personal experience such easily avoidable errors occur in at least 10% of forms. This isn't intended as an argument to your post, I'm just stating what I find.
Maybe it's just my renowned bad luck, but even my very limited experience tells me they're still making too many avoidable gaffs, most of which would be easily avoided by transcribers having a basic local knowledge - or as is more likely in this age by being done using better computers which not only recognise & read individual characters but can interprete them into actual names, for example. I say this as an engineer with 30+ years experience and in my business such socalled errors just wouldn't happen. Now if it turns out that Ancestry rely on human volunteers then I guess that's fair enough, although I doubt this & hope not judging by their Subscription rates.

What I find a lot more worrying tho' is that when they first started releasing 1911 transcripts, according to some wellknown FH magazine articles Ancestry were not correcting such "errors" when reported and have stated they don't intend to either.
I do hope this last statement isn't true ?.

2. You mention how the Census forms are blanked out over the "Infirmity" column. My prime reason for posting tonight was to ask whether this is only being done while the Free access is available ?. I don't recall seeing this overly obtrusive white block on the few Forms I've seen on the Library Ancestry pc. When the 1911 Census was first released last year I read and agreed with comments as to how this new element would be of great interest, and given the timescale personally I cannot see how this would be considered politically incorrect to show them except in most extreme cases perhaps. Do you know why this is being done, is it the "norm" for all the various 1911 Sites or just Ancestry or just this weekend ?.

As ever I look forward to any views particularly re the second point, thanks in advance. Alternatively I'll look it up in a day or three as I would normally do so.
Hope you all enjoy the summer while it lasts, rain's due Monday night, hoorah for the hosepipe ban !