Bob Scott of the Jefferson County, Indiana Rootsweb list, that was very enlightening about the problems with the 1830 census 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1900 censuses indexed by Ancestry.com as well as other pitfalls to avoid. I have come across the Iowa rather than Indiana problem before, but your explanation makes it quite clear and may avoid missing a record for other genealogists. I am always wondering why I can't find people in various censuses, and this is yet another reason. Many people use Ancestry Library Edition at their local public library, so they also need to know of these problems. Please read Bob's posting below my signature. Laura Mitchell Vigo County, Indiana ----- Original Message ----- From: <BobWScott@aol.com> To: <INJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 10:54 PM Subject: [INJEFFER] Ancestry transcriptions >I would like to advise anybody who subscribes to Ancestry.com that when you > use the census records, do not rely on the transcriptions that ancestry > posts. > Always go to the original image. > > For example, the various censuses, whoever did the transcription read the > abbreviation Ia. as meaning born in Iowa. In fact, it meant Indiana and > Iowa was > always spelled out. If you do a search on the 1850 census for Indiana and > put the birth place as Iowa, you will find 116,283 people list, which is > a > migration pattern that obviously didn't happen. > > Do a search for those born in Iowa in Switzerland County and you get 7,903 > born in Iowa out of a total county listing (the ancestry county6) of > 12,935, or > more than half. > > The 1850 census is the worst, but this happened through the censuses in > the > 1800s and appears to have depended on individual transcribers. > > Another snafu involves reading Ken. as Kenya for a birthplace. Th is did > not > happen in the 1850 census. They havd 1,592 in the 1860 census born in > Kenya; > 908 in 1870; none in 1880; 460 in 1900. If you look at the images, it's > obvious most of these people (given their race) and the places that other > people > in their household were born in, they weren't born in Kenya. > > Also, in 1830, the transcription lists over 1700 Jefferson County > residents > as born in Lancaster Township. What apparently happened is that the > transcriber missed the note that has "Jefferson County exclusive of > Lancaster Township" > and lumped in Milton and Shelby Townships and I don't know what else. > > I've been trying to get them to correct the Iowa stuff for two years. All > I > get back is form responses that I should go to t his online form and note > suggest changes on individual names (which obviously is not going to take > care > of thousands of non-Iowans) > > As near as I can tell, they aren't all that interested in fixing things > and > that if you use their transcriptions, beware. > > Bob Scott > > >