Received the following e-mail this morning. If anyone out there is willing to check this out and take on the project, please contact Joel Weintraub. Claudia Schuman http://www.rootsweb.com/~mnhennep/ http://hennbios.tripod.com/index.htm http://fdlbios.tripod.com/index.htm http://www.rootsweb.com/~mnscott/index.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joel Weintraub" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 11:26 AM Subject: 1910 Minneapolis Project... > Claudia, > > I would like you to add a new Project to your list of projects on the > Hennepin County Genweb site....or if you know someone who can take this one, > I would appreciate it. > > Let me introduce myself. I've been involved in making geographical searches > on the US Census easier. I and my volunteers have transcribed the 1930 US > Census....cities over 25,000, and that database forms the basis of Steve > Morse's Search engine (One Step) for that year. See: > http://www.stevemorse.org/census/index.html > > We also transcribed for those cities 1930 to 1920 tables found on NARA T1224 > for 1930 so that if one has an address in 1920 which is also the same place > in 1930, one could with our utility find the 1930 ED for the address and the > 1920 ED as well. > > We are close to opening a new utility...that will have a One Step aid for > some cities in the 1910 US Census. NARA has microfiche M1283 that has > street indexes to ED #s for about 50 cities, and the FamilySearch (LDS) > people have a fiche that has 5 cities on it for 1910 (street indexes) > including Minneapolis. I only have a handful of cities left to do before we > will > make the new site public. > > Which brings me to this email. The LDS people gave me a file for > Minneapolis 1910. This text file has the same information as their > microfiche. I've been trying to get the file in proper format so that I can > include Minneapolis as one of our 1910 One Step cities. It's just been one > big frustration. What I need is for someone who is very familiar with > Minneapolis and has access to old maps, to complete the project. > > Problem is, that the LDS transcribers must have used the Census sheets > directly....without access to a map of the area. So they transcribed any > variation of the name they found on the sheets. > > Ordinarily, when I do such Census sheet transcriptions, I eliminate the > street name modifiers (Ave, Blvd, North, South) because often enumerators > skip those items, and with our method they don't make much of a difference > for most cities. > > Unfortunately, they do make a big difference for Minneapolis that apparently > has numerical Aves and Streets with compass modifiers. If I were to ignore > whether a street is an Ave or a St, or whether it is NE or whatever, > researchers could not get down to only one or a few EDs using the > Minneapolis database. > > I've looked at the boundary descriptions of the 1910 EDs on NARA T1224 for > Minneapolis. I have the 1910 Ward maps shown on one Website. Problem > is that the actual streets I see on the LDS database don't correspond to > either resource. The T1224 descriptions often only show, for ED 137 for > example: "Minneapolis city, Ward 8; Precinct 5" and no street names within > an ED. I've tried to map the EDs on your ward map but the resolution is not > great enough for several areas. How much change has happened in street > names and numbering systems in Minneapolis since 1910? Could I use a modern > map of Minneapolis (like Street Atlas) and at least plot the census > boundaries...to see what the compass modifiers are of streets within a given > area with the assumption that that was the same in 1910? > > To give you some idea of the problem: here is some of the info I'm working > with. Note that I first put all the compass modifiers in brackets and the > street modifiers (Ave, etc.) on the original LDS 1910 Minneapolis file. The > "; ** " is a way of formatting so I can do global replace commands to get it > back to where I want it. This bracketing was before I realized I needed at > least the compass modifiers. > > For example: > ED 144 has: > [W] 33rd; **144. > [W] 32nd [S]; **144. > [W] 32nd; **144. > [W] 32nd Pl; **144. > [W] 34th; **144. > > Now, I've looked at the Ancestry images...and it looks like these Streets > should all be West something (or our format will be to have them something > West)...but there are those funny "S". > > Another 1910 example... > This is the complete ED 137 from the LDS text. Note LDS put their street > index in alphabetical/numerical order, and I've rearranged the data so it's > in ED # sequence. Each line represents a line on the LDS file. In some > cases where the information is redundant, it's there because the address # > range was different...we (One Step) ignore address #s. : > 14th [Ave] [S]; **137. > 1st [Ave] [S]; **137. > 1st; **137. > 27th [E]; **137. > 27th; **137. > 28th [E]; **137. > 29th; **137. > 2nd [Ave]; **137. > 2nd [Ave] [S]; **137. > 2nd; **137. > 3rd [Ave] [S]; **137. > 3rd [Ave]; **137. > 3rd [Ave] [S]; **137. > 3rd; **137. > 3rd; **137. > 5th; **137. > Clinton [Ave]; **137. > Lake [E]; **137. > Nicollet [Ave]; **137. > Nis [Ave]; **137. > Stevens [Ave] [S]; **137. > [E] 28th; **137. > [E] Lake; **137. > > As you can see, it looks like sometimes the enumerator made a number an Ave > and sometimes they didn't... sometimes they added a compass modifier and > sometimes they didn't. Same thing for some of the alphabetical named > Streets... with both E and S streets showing. What a mess. I have no handle > on this problem. I could force all the low numerical streets as Ave S...and > all the high numerical streets (high 20s) as St E.....but..... > > I've changed my mind a number of times on trying to get this city done and > how to clean up the database. I thought at one time that I would just show > what the LDS film has.... but the quality control is gone from our website > if we do this....people expect that if I say 3rd it's not 3rd Ave S. If I > were to include 3rd (St), 3rd Ave, and 3rd Ave S and they are all the same > street, it will create major problems for the One Step search model. > > So, I've decided to exclude right now Minneapolis from the new 1910 Utility > that should be opening up to the public pretty soon. It's unfortunate, as > there is good information for most of the EDs for that city for 1910 on the > LDS fiche. > > What I need is for someone to take on this project, and > correct/augment/revise the database I now have. > > Thanks in advance for any consideration, > > Joel Weintraub > Dana Point, CA > > > >