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State Census Coordinator
Lesson # 3
Doing a first 60 submission
Or Doing A QA check

Following is a copy of the assignment letter that the computer generates to your new transcriber. I have made a change to highlight what this lesson is about.

This letter is confirming that Patricia J. Ferguson is performing the following census enumeration:

1850 St Clair, AL
ROLL #: M432-14
ED or DISTRICT: All

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You must have the materials to transcribe from, or access to them. While we do furnish the software, WE DO NOT HAVE CENSUS RECORDS TO GIVE YOU. To assist you in obtaining the census materials to use in your transcription we have a page at http://www.usgwcensus.org/location.htm

Your best source of information will be me, your State Census Coordinator. Please feel free to write with any questions at any time. Please keep me informed as to how you are progressing. If something comes up and for whatever reason you cannot finish your assignment, please let me know. I will check on your progress from time to time. There is no rush on this, please take your time and do it right.

To assist you in your endeavor we have a help pages for you at http://www.usgwcensus.org/help/index.htm

Please read through the tutorial that covers the year you are interested in. If you have any further questions, please see the GenConnect Census Question Board. http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/ genbbs.cgi/Archives/Census/FAQ

The Census Project has mailing lists where you can share information and ideas with other transcribers. All transcribers are automatically subscribed to USGWARCH-CEN-L list. You will find information on all the mailing lists at http://www.usgwcensus.org/lists.htm

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We provide our volunteer transcribers with either a database program (which we prefer you use if possible) or a template that has been created so that our file managers can convert the work to the standardized text output we place online. Please see the specific year help pages for information on what is available for that year. http://www.usgwcensus.org

Now what do you do? This is where your management skills start to become necessary. At least half of all Transcribers never read the assignment letter. Therefore, I recommend that you wait the maximum of 1 week to see if the transcriber will send you the QA check. In fact it pays to be proactive. Send a personal message when the assignment letter goes out. Remind them that they owe you that QA check.

How do they generate it and how do they get it to you? I will give detailed instructions for CenTrans, since over 90% of our transcribers use it. Do Not use the file export command under the File Pull down menu. Centrans is a ported program from FileMaker. The export and import commands do not work correctly. They will generate a GIGOAMS file. Never heard that term? Garbage In, Garbage Out At Machine Speed. There will be a file generated, but it exactly GIGOAMS. No one can do anything with what is generated. Believe Me I have tried everything.

Go to Centrans on the Pull down Menu at the top of the Centrans screen. It is the 7th command over, starting with File at the top of the screen. Click on Centrans and go down to the 13th item (Create dbf). I am typing this from memory. It is probably at least the 100th time I have done it. A dialog box will come up asking for the folder to save the file to. I recommend that all transcribers generate a separate folder for the Census Project. By default it would be saved in My documents. I believe that is true in all Windows programs since Win 95. I know it is in all XP versions of Windows. Write down the folder and make up a file name. I suggest year and county Thus for the transcription assigned above it would be 1850 St Clair.dbf. Spaces are ok. The program will insert the .dbf. Click save, and the data is saved.

Now go to the email program and generate a message to the SCC. Click Insert then File attachment. Go to the folder where the file was saved and click on the file name that you wrote down. Then click to attach. After it is sent no more work should be done til comments are received from the SCC.

This is one of the most time sensitive things you will do as SCC. You have an eager transcriber, and now you have told him to do nothing til he hears back from you. So Get to work. This should not take over 20 minutes. It helps if you have Ancestry.com, but you can do the transcription without it. I suggest that you send Priscilla, Kathy or me a copy of what you receive on your first QA receipt. Go ahead and check it yourself and see what you get back from one of us.

I personally hate nitpickers. However this is the time to Nitpick. Everything that you do not catch will have to be edited out later. So import the file into either CenTrans or Excel. Remember that I can provide you a copy of MS Office 2000, for project use. You import the same way as exporting with a couple of exceptions. 1 you go to the 12th command down. Read from dbf. After that hopefully the file will import without problem. However data has to be in a certain order to import. I have available templates of what is in what filed in CenTrans. Ask And I will send you one for a specific year or the entire batch.

Look at the header info. Check page numbering. More on that next time. Simply stated the page with the stamped number is the B sheet. In most censuses, there are 2 sheets to a page, i.e. the page has 2 sides to it. Make sure that the header info is correct. In the header is the only place we use the Postal code. Make sure that every line item (l/i) can stand on its own. Each Line item must have L/I, dwelling and family numbers. The earliest censuses did not use these items so we have to generate the l/i number for those. Also every line must have a surname. The reason is that the data from each l/I must stand on its own. Other than this, the data must be as much like the enumerator wrote it down as possible. Birthplace are generally either the state Name completely or an normal abbreviation. Massachusetts is generally written out or is Mass. Generally it will not be MA. That is a postal code that was started in the 1960's. I say generally because I always told my transcribers that Ala. Or Alabama were the ways the state name was used. This week a transcriber called my attention to a enumerator in 1850 who used Al. At least it wasn't AL.

What about unreadable items? Use all the letters that you can make out and ? For the ones that can not be deciphered. Or if totally unreadable enter Illegible. The remarks column is for the transcriber's use when he want's to explain something. If you have Ancestry or access to the images do a complete proofing of the sample. Usually you will find 20-30 small errors in a QA sample. However I have seen as many as 300, that is where someone entered the Surnames in ALL CAPS and used Postal codes. Make sure all elements are present. On 1830 & 1840 censuses there are 2 sheets that are different per page. Both sheets must be filled out. Yes a lot of that data is Slave info, but they have descendants who will someday be looking for them. In addition there is data on occupation and health condition on the "Back Side."

Earnie Breeding


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