What do you put in the event description field for a census?
The reason for this question is to get feedback on pull request #1782 - “Check events of type CENSUS as well as OCCUPATION when looking for occupations”
Feedback on GitHub would also be welcome.
Since the Citations in Gramps are rather simplistic, I try to put the full USA Census Information for the family in the description.
Census information: Year, type of census, enumeration district, page number, dwelling number, family number
Examples from the St. Louis Genealogical Society’s Citations: A Guide to Creating Proper Source Citations
“1880 U.S. Census (population schedule), Brigham City, Box Elder, Utah, ED 4, sheet 5A, John Barker household, ancestry.com, subscription database, accessed March 2014”
“1920 US census, DuPage County, Illinois, population schedule, York Township, Villa Park Village, p. 202-B (stamped), enumeration district (ED) 28, sheet 1-B, dwelling 23, family 23, George Rottman; NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 365”
To clarify my choice of “Other”: I rarely enter anything in the description for any event, but twice I have entered “(uncertain)” in the description of a census event, to remind myself of my uncertainty as to whether the person is really who I think it is.
I put the occupation and age in as attributes.
I seldom put anything in the Description, however I put a part of the Census in the Vol/Page field. Like the District, Sub-District, Folio, Page, etc. This lets me use the search function to locate the record so it can be added to another person.
I put the name of the head of household as transcribed. My last name, Treleaven, has been transcribed in some truly creative and bizarre ways, such as Frulevan. I don’t add such things as alternate “Names” so using the description field helps remind me to search a lot of variations when I’m having trouble finding a family that I really think should be there.
Craig
I normally put the name of the head of household as transcribed on the census form, the word Household if the event is shared, the census year, state name for state censuses, and the word Census. I do not have any census data outside the U.S. or I would probably change that. I make a few exceptions when the head of household is not included in my database. Lots of examples can be seen in the narrated website and dynamic website at cridermcdowellfamily.com.
I write the address in the description field. In this way I can easily see where a person has lived, when opening the Person editor window.
Because I only create Census Data by using Forms the Description is left
Blank (which is another topic)
However I put in which Census it is
i.e. “1921 England”
phil
I’m another who uses the Forms add-on for Census transcription.
The census event is shared across all members of the “household” and the description is empty in this case. I then manually create Birth, Marriage, Death, Residence, Occupation etc. events as required by the data and share the same citation across all events. Events may get shared as well e.g. I share a Residence event across all members of the household, potentially adjusting the the role (Boarder, Visitor etc.)
Steve
I can understand why people put nothing in an event description field. However I always describe census events thus
1861 Census - Westminster/ 1 Buckingham Palace Road
I also complete the Date and Address fields. Why the duplication?
I’m old school database and I like to check the lists of events etc… To do so with a blank description field is impossible.
Births are described
birth of Harry Houdini
I can sort/select using the description
This thread raised a related question for me. How should census data be entered in Gramps so that it survives Gedcom export and import somewhere else?
I have a lot of mostly Canadian census data entered. I have entered Age, Occupation, and especially Religion as attributes for each person enumerated. The Gramps wiki seems to indicate that Occupation and Religion attributes are not going to transfer into Gedom (or not well?).
https://gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php/Gramps_and_GEDCOM
Knowing a person’s currently espoused religion can be very helpful when looking for other records, especially prior to civil registration. It never occurred to me before that I was entering this information in a ‘dead end’ way, so to speak. I don’t currently have any need to export to Gedcom but I don’t like the idea that these significant data elements might be left behind.
Do I understand this correctly and what do you think I/we should do going forward?
Craig
I use forms extensively for data entry and do not open another window to physically enter a description. I then run the Extract Event Description tool at a later date, if necessary. Empty descriptions are not an issue for a census event, for example, as I would always refer to the census data set.
I think, it would be a great feature which will gather all person attributes inside a note during export files generating. One row - one attribute. We will get person-notes like this:
Children - 10;
Eyes - blue;
Caste - Cosack.
Notes are supported in GEDCOM, right? So, data will not be lost. But I dont know, maybe we already have any addon, which generates such notes?
I put Recensement du ménage n° NNN (=> Household no. NNN census)
As the census is a place event, the house of household no. NNN of such and such a municipality, I will attach it primarily to the place if I could, then join it to the members of the different families, hence my choice to remain in a logic of household in a place
And about the PR (I didn’t really understand its context, why this topic), I use the Forms gramplet to enter censuses and indeed, the Occupation information is often present there. Personally, rather than searching both in the profession events and in a Occupation attribute, it seems to me preferable to use an event filter for the Occupation event and a filter of the attributes of the reference to the census event (if such a filter existed - I developed it with SuperTool) for this Occupation information in the census event. But as I said, I don’t see what the context is so maybe my answer is not the appropriate one
I also threat a census as a place event…
That is one of multiple reasons I have asked for both Main- /Sub Events and Events on Places so many times.
I link people with their status for the event as type, e.g. Husband, Wife, Child, Tenant etc.
I create new Events for any other information in the Census and use the same Citation I create for the Census for those Events.
Information about a Person will be a Personal Event; e.g. Occupation, Information about earlier Residence etc.
In the description field for a Census events, I have tried to use e.g. “National Census for [country, state, municipality, address, household] for the Year YYYY”, but any import disrupts this system.
I add the address (location) down to housenumber as location/place, that way I will be able to order all other people that lived at the same address so it can be easier to find relations later on.
I usually also add information about everyone living at the same address, because more than ones, I have found out later that people living at the same address in a city or small town actually was relative close family or become family by marriage at a later date. or they got some other relations to the family at a later state, e.g. Witnesses, Godparents or even a foster family ones (took me nearly 10 years to figure that one out and is one of the main reasons for why I started to add information for the whole building)…
I will never use “occupation” or similar as a description for a cesus event…
But the census may be a source for an occupation event…
I do this in Obsidian and Foam for the moment, while I wait for “Event on Places” and “Main- /Sub-Events” and the hierarchy for sources and citations.
Thanks for all your feedback. I have rejected this pull request.
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