1940 US Census

[courtney]

Either late Thursday or early Friday all 1940 census scans are now uploaded.
Finding someone will be a different story for awhile. I hope the indexers-abstracters all have new bi-focals so as to avoid transcription mistakes.

Yeah, don't count on it.

The way the indexing works is two indexers work on the same image. An arbitrator gets those two images and then selects the "correct" parts and/or writes in completely new values. Once the image is arbitrated, it goes to be published. No re-corrects. I will put this as nicely as possible - there are a LOT of arbitrators who should not be within 100 feet of the census and/or indexed pages.

I've been indexing and honestly, if I didn't do it to want to help others in the long run, I'd have stopped.

I've had so many batches [[pages) that have been massacred by arbitrators. Butchering of really clearly written names [[ie: Mack to Mark, Dewey to Derneey, McIllwain to McIlwain, Eva to Era, Paul became Reed etc etc), stupid spelling issues [[like changing the town name of Pensacola to Pensicola), and that's not even counting the "format" errors like filling in fictional places for "residence 5 years ago" for children under 4, or incorrectly adding in lines that should have been blank. One family I indexed will even have 25 phantom children with no names or ages.

So many others are having the same issues and it's frustrating to know that NOTHING is being done to a) correct the records that will be published and b) stop the moron arbitrators from making the whole thing a huge joke.

At any rate, be prepared to still have to search page by page through the census, even if you are looking up what would be considered an "easy" name.

[mikefmich]

Yeah, don't count on it.

The way the indexing works is two indexers work on the same image. An arbitrator gets those two images and then selects the "correct" parts and/or writes in completely new values. Once the image is arbitrated, it goes to be published. No re-corrects. I will put this as nicely as possible - there are a LOT of arbitrators who should not be within 100 feet of the census and/or indexed pages.

I've been indexing and honestly, if I didn't do it to want to help others in the long run, I'd have stopped.

I've had so many batches [[pages) that have been massacred by arbitrators. Butchering of really clearly written names [[ie: Mack to Mark, Dewey to Derneey, McIllwain to McIlwain, Eva to Era, Paul became Reed etc etc), stupid spelling issues [[like changing the town name of Pensacola to Pensicola), and that's not even counting the "format" errors like filling in fictional places for "residence 5 years ago" for children under 4, or incorrectly adding in lines that should have been blank. One family I indexed will even have 25 phantom children with no names or ages.

So many others are having the same issues and it's frustrating to know that NOTHING is being done to a) correct the records that will be published and b) stop the moron arbitrators from making the whole thing a huge joke.

At any rate, be prepared to still have to search page by page through the census, even if you are looking up what would be considered an "easy" name.

Wow.....I just noticed your post Courtney. I'd love to speak further about this stuff. I complain to Ancestry.....a LOT.