I also use UK census records, but do try to verify things from other sources. I also use the official birth, marriage and death indexes, and used to heave the heavy volumes off the shelves at St. Catherine's House. (They are not there any more). A lot of the information in those is erroneous. You should look at Michael Whitfield Foster's books: "A Comedy of Errors" or the Marriage Records of England and Wales 1837 - 1899 ISBN 0-473-05581-3, published privately in 1998; and its sequel ISBN 00473-07480-X published in 2002. After getting and reading the first book I corresponded with him, and Chapter 9 of his second book is based on that correspondence and what he was able to learn when he was able to look at the actual GRO records. I am now a nonagenarian and am no longer actively researching. My task now is to go through all my old paper records and document them properly in BK. Geoff Wilson At 01:21 PM 4/21/2015, Steve via wrote: >I tend to look on the census returns as secondary information and >for those before 1911, as transcriptions because they are not the >original household returns. > >They also have the additional problems, for me, of illiterate >ancestors so the household return could well have been completed by >somebody else, and the problems of different accents due to >migration from one part of the UK to another eg Cornwall or Somerset >to Northumberland or Durham. I believe the 2nd problem is even worse >in the USA with higher levels of migration and multiple languages. > >Plus I have come across, in the 1881 census, comments from the >Enumerator regarding the paternity of a child who was living in >lodgings with his mother. I suspect that other Enumerators may have >gone further and changed names. > >Cheers >Steve > >On 21/04/2015 17:58, Jack via wrote: > > I changed the subject heading to fit with my question. > > > > I discovered several errors on one census covering my home town (gross > > misspellings, etc.). Obvious to me because I had better information, > > but those errors are now in a source document. My question is how > > seriously do people take a census document (image)? And is it really a > > good idea to add another layer of possible errors by transcribing it? > > How do people typically deal with such situations? I believe that I've > > simply added notes as appropriate. Just curious. > > > > //jack