Help with 1930 Census Records

Help with 1930 Census Records

Many times I have been asked what should be done with 1930 census records that say "this batch may be partially indexed"?

When you open the batch you find that there are several data items already indexed, like names, gender, sometimes race or color is there and a few places of birth are shown, but not all.

What does that mean to you as an indexer? If you click on the right hand side of your worksheet, above "Field Helps" where the "Project Information" tab is, you can read all about the working partnership that Family Search has ongoing with Ancestory.com.

These partially indexed records came from Ancestory. We are enhancing the 1930 census by using their (Ancestory's) current published information. We are asked to add things such as, line number, Family number, title or terms such as Jr or Sr, all the missing data, and the date of immigration. We are also asked to please verify ALL existing data from Ancestory.com. They did make mistakes so please take time to look at the spellings on the names. There are a few tips I will share with you that may make this indexing record go a little faster for you.

• If you see a capital H, next to or above the wife's given name: do not index the H. It stands for wife of head of household.
• If you see a lower case "ab" written after a given name: do not index the ab. It stands for "absent" from the home when the census taker was there.
• Check to see if everyone on the page was the same race or color: If they are you can enter the correct term in the first persons line, then right click on the term and you will get a drop down table that, at the bottom, it says: "Ditto Fields Below". Click on that and it will populate all fields below. After you scroll down to make sure all Race or Color fields are filled, you can right click on Race or Color, the header, for that field and you can choose to "Hide Race or Color". That removes it from your work sheet, but saves it so when you submit that batch it will be added to your data items. Why do that?? Well if you can reduce as many as possible fields you shorten up the work space and have less items to tab over. It goes a lot faster. Just make sure what you ditto applies to every person on the record. You won't want to do that with Sex or Martial Status.
• If you scroll across the record before starting and see that no one immigrated, so there will be no year of immigration to add; then Right click on the header for that field and hide the year of Immigration field.
• On the far right of your work sheet there are two fields that we do not have anything to do with. That is PID number and Enumeration District. You can just right click on the headers for both of those fields and Hide them from your work sheet.
• Fields that you HIDE, can be restored by clicking on VIEW at the top of your screen and go to the bottom of the drop-down list to "Organize Fields". It will show you which fields you hide. If you highlight the one you want to see on your worksheet again, and then hit the left tab button, it will move it back to your list of selected items and put it on the bottom.
• Remember that all Federal Census Record worksheets are set for 50 names. Sometimes there may be fewer than 50 names written on the original document. You MUST enter something for all 50 lines. So if there are only 6 names written on the original document then you must enter 44 "Blanks" for the remaining 44 lines.

Arbitrators: Ancestory.com's info is always in Key A. If you must choose a PID number accept Key A. If there is no PID number in Key A, but there is one in Key B, then you would accept Key B. If neither batch, A or B, has a PID number and you are prompted to select one, enter BLANK. Most times you don't have to choose a PID number so don't be too concerned about it.

I hope that these tips help you understand what you can do to speed up your indexing work. Please read the "Project Information" before you start any new work in indexing. They have lots of suggestions and helps available to everyone.