Monday, June 6, 2022

Week 23 - Mistake (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks)

Take a look at line 9 on this census form.  What do you think it says?  Now remember what you thought as you read my post.  




Lately, I have been searching the newly released 1950 census.  Many times when I look at the actual record there are glaring mistakes made by either the transcriber or the new handwriting recognition technology being used by Ancestry when it comes to how the names are spelled in the resulting index. But even with what I call mistakes, the hint usually led to the correct individual.  When looking at some of the images tho, the names are clearly written and readable.  I know that transcribers are given instructions on how to do this, but I could not understand how anything or anyone could get some of them wrong. I spent the time in submitting a correction for each one that I found.  

But transcribing handwritten records is not an exact science.  Each transcriber may see the word differently.  So this is not a new problem for researchers.  Recently I posted an image of a 1950 census record for my great grandfather, William Ralph Arnold, in our family Facebook group.  His occupation was listed as a retail sales clerk in, what I read as, a "retail Luncheon store".  Maybe a little odd to me for a 69 year old guy who was a farmer and carpenter but that's what I thought I saw.  And  just what is a "luncheon store"?  My aunt later suggested that it was probably "linoleum" not "luncheon" because my great grandfather's son owned a floor covering store.  I did know this but did not connect the two because I never knew great grandad worked in it.  I took a look at the image again and there it was - "linoleum".   I guess it helps when you know what it's supposed to be.  

How did you read it?

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4 comments:

  1. On quick reading, it does look like luncheon...but linoleum makes more sense in context, as your aunt said!

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  2. I also read "luncheon"... Is it sloppy handwriting or did the census taker misspell linoleum? Thanks for sharing.

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  3. I did read it as linoleum. It was a bit hard to pick out, but I looked at it pretty carefully because you had highlighted it.

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  4. Thanks for reading and giving an opinion!

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