Comments on: How Can I Improve the 1940 U.S. Census?

By: Jess

Jess — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 08:58:42 +0000

I have been shocked at how poor the indexing has been for the 1940 Census. In Rockingham, Virginia over 60% of the surnames that I am researching have been indexed incorrectly often with multiple spelling variations on the same page for the same surname. First names and relationship to head of household have also been bad. Ancestry.com’s quality control has been atrocious.

Sure I could submit an alternate name but when we are talking thousands of individuals with the incorrect last name AND a service which I pay for why should I waste my time doing YOUR job.

If people are having issues I highly recommend using familysearch.org which has been more accurate for my surnames and localities or using the long method with street addresses.

By: Helen Dearing

Helen Dearing — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 21:42:41 +0000

I, too, have found many, many errors in indexing names that were originally written correctly by the enumerator in 1940. This is especially frustrating since the majority of these names are commonly used in the USA, leading me to the belief that Ancestry outsourced the 1940 Census transcription to people who are not familiar with USA names. Disappointed in Ancestry!
Helen Dearing

By: fchambers

fchambers — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 19:05:56 +0000

So far, I have found hundreds of incredibly transcribed misspellings of both given and surnames. It’s hard to believe that the transcribers were paid to make such obvious an careless errors. I have corrected each error as I found it whether a family member or not. Otherwise, it would be impossible for anyone to find someone in the search results. It would be prudent to make the transcribers review the original census images, look more closely and correct their errors (without additional pay since their carelessness created this problem). As we all know, haste makes waste.

By: MsWinston

MsWinston — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 17:18:21 +0000

Some individuals and families are fairly easy to find, while others are impossible to locate using the Index. I have found this to be particularly true for families who lived in the state of Arkansas, where I have many distant maternal cousins. Whole families are just missing, yet the people didn’t die until the 1970′s and beyond. I have researched under married names and maiden names, made deliberate spelling errors on surnames, all to no end. What in the heck is going on?

By: Ellen

Ellen — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 14:04:29 +0000

It appears that searching on “William” no longer pulls up names indexed as “Wm”; “John” no longer pulls up “Jno”; Samuel no longer pulls up Sam’l; etc. I’ve been making an addition to the names enumerated and indexed by abbreviations when I find them and doing it under “variation”. I would like you see you go back to the former method of searching. I like that you do not remove the earlier (incorrect) transcription as this allows me (if I’ve entered it in my database as originally transcribed [i.e., Sara for Sarah]to find it again easily under the incorrect rendering as well as the corrected one. I would also like to see an alternative in the name correction protocol that says Formal Name (or something similar) so that when John’s name has been entered as “Johnny” by the enumerator there is an accurate place to enter his true name.

By: Kim Rabbeni

Kim Rabbeni — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 23:44:53 +0000

What are you supposed to do when you errors in census itself?

I found an instance where at least one street was placed in two different enumeration districts. So the people on the street were counted twice in the census.

Is there a protocol for reporting errors? This wasn’t a case of someone transcribing the information incorrectly. This was a case of two different census takers interviewing the same people. It’s the exact same address and the exact same information. I found this because one of the people on the street is in my tree.

By: George C. Dixon

George C. Dixon — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 19:53:37 +0000

I will agree that I am very disappointed with the way the 1940 Census has been set up for a couple of reasons. First, I have any number of family members whose names I can clearly read on the census form but cannot merge into my family tree program because their names do not appear when I do a web search via the little green leaf or otherwise. Secondly, all too often in order for me to merge those family members I have found in the 1940 Census, it is necessary for me to close my program in order to merge them into my tree, Rarely am I able to merge successfully these names into my program. Please do not tell me that it is my program, for I am able to merge other material such as directory listings or war records, etc. I will also agree with one of the individuals above who commented upon the misspelling of names. I do not know who did the transcribing of the 1940 Census, but they certainly cannot read English correctly.

By: Toni

Toni — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 19:19:03 +0000

Although disappointed at the many indexing errors I have been finding in the 1940 census, there is one bright spot.
I just discovered that highlighting the name in the bottom index allows alternate information to be added for a name I was not researching, right there, without having to do another search. Louisiana has many French names that show up badly transcribed. I’m glad if I can help others find their family members by making a few extra submissions.

By: Laurie

Laurie — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 00:34:30 +0000

While it is helpful when people correct transcription errors by entering alternate names, one thing I find frustrating is when users submit alternate names that are incorrect. There’s no way to notify Ancestry to remove the invalid alternate.

By: Concetta Phillipps

Concetta Phillipps — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 16:15:21 +0000

I’ve been very disappointed with the quality of the indexing so far for Ancestry for the 1940. Very obvious errors have been made, and the Quality Assurance reviews have obviously not caught them. For example, on one page, the gentleman’s name was clearly “Lamar G” and Ancestry ran the whole name through so that the indexed entry was “Lamarg”, making it impossible to find the gentleman by name because of the way Ancestry’s search system works. This was not my own family, I reported it because it was the right thing to do.

The 1940 errors on FamilySearch aren’t fixable, but the overall quality of the indexing is definitely better than on Ancestry. All the fancy technical advancements are great, but bottom line is, we need quality in the indexed entries in order to be able to use them.