Posts in January 13, 2016

One problem-solving approach when analyzing a document or a record is to ask yourself, “how did this record and the information it contains get to me?” Sometimes the answer is not as simple as you think. That age for Grandma on the US census you’ve obtained on FamilySearch, probably went through a process very similar to this one: Someone provided that age for Grandma to the census taker–it may or may not have been Grandma. The census taker thought about what he heard. It may not have been what was actually said. The census taker wrote it down in their notes. Their handwriting might have been sloppy. The census taker later wrote up their notes for the actual census. They may not have been able to read them. That census record sat […]