On Fri, 24 Mar 2000 23:52:59 EST Claire3c@aol.com writes: > Hi, I go to the Bishop Library in Toms River which has Fed.census for NJ...<snip>... MY problem copying would be some parts are illegible and I would hate to mislead someone. Some of the names if you don't know what you are looking for, you would never guess what they are. Claire, I'm several days behind on answering messages. We will have everything proof read by others looking at the census image too, so you can't do any harm. For the most part, the films of the census are pretty good (1910 is notorious for being light). It is light on the right side of many pages, but readable, the left sides with the names are clear on all but a very few pages, in a couple of places. So we are lucky in that. Having the left side be light would have been terrible. I've heard but not seen that the CDs can enhance them greatly. So we can use them hopefully to do the difficult parts. Interpreting names is always a problem. I know I have found some interesting ones, like Haines for Harned. When I looked at the original on that one it did look like Haines. Transcribers can just do the best they can. There is an interesting lesson on deciphering old handwriting at <http://www.firstct.com/fv/oldhand.html> It includes some abbreviations for names, states and occupations that are interesting. Anything in question can be bracketed. I will get instructions to all volunteers on exactly how to deal with questions and light or illegible writing. Anita