Just to add a side-note to the current discussion, and to protect the good name of the many volunteer transcribers involved, their instructions are to transcribe AS THE ORIGINAL WAS WRITTEN. They are NOT to interpose their own thoughts or interpretations where the original is reasonably clear, regardless of their own local knowledge of names and places. Because to do so is to provide an INTERPRETATION (i.e. subjective), whereas their task is to provide a TRANSCRIPTION (i.e. objective) and leave any interpretation to the researcher. This can be quite difficult to do, especially if you KNOW the original document is wrong. But as I'm sure you will agree, true researchers would always want to get as close as possible to the document as it was written. All the best Jim Bairdformer FreeCEN County Coordinator for Argyllshire and Renfrewshire > From: sct-islay-request@rootsweb.com > Subject: SCT-ISLAY Digest, Vol 10, Issue 90 > To: sct-islay@rootsweb.com > Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2015 01:00:31 -0700 > > > > > If replying with quote to a digest message, quote =ONLY= the relevant portion of the specific message to which you are replying, removing the rest of the digest from your reply. ALSO: change the subject of your reply to match the message subject to which you are replying. Failure to follow these guidelines may result in your reply being rejected. > > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. another answer to census errors (Sue Visser) > 2. Re: another answer to census errors (Candy Hawkins) > 3. Re: another answer to census errors (John Kemplen)

Thanks for saying that, Jim. I come from a professional background where everyone accepts that errors happen and does not take it personally when errors are discussed, but I appreciate that that is not universally the case, especially where volunteers are involved, and I should have phrased my comment more carefully. Anyone who has seen the originals of Census returns or Parish Registers knows how difficult it can be to interpret the handwriting on them, not least because of the florid styles of writing that were used in those days. To take the example I quoted in my comment, a capital 'T' could well have had a leftward kick at the bottom of the vertical stroke which would make it look like a 'J' to a transcriber looking at it today. In another case, people researching my McKellar roots came up with a completely erroneous idea of a home location on the Island of Bute by misreading a very florid 'L' as a 'B'. In this case the problem was largely one of subjectivity and seeing what you expect to see because the place name started with the relatively unusual 'Len...' rather than the much more common 'Ben...'. That may make it sound as though I agree with the concept of objectivity in transcription, but that is actually not the case. Once a transcriber has written something plausible, how is a researcher to know which bits of the transcription to treat with caution and which to accept with confidence? Again harking back to my professional career when I had to oversee the analysis of travel surveys where much of the data was collected by interviewing motorists at the roadside, often in the rain and undergoing a torrent of abuse, there was NO substitute for local knowledge and context when coding scribbled address data back at the office. You might have expected non-local coders to be more objective, but in fact they just slid into a different kind of subjectivity by substituting the names of large places that were in their gazetteers for small local places that often had different local names anyway. This gives an immediate and obvious problem with genealogical transcription, because the very people who are often most interested in their roots are those whose families have moved a long way away from their places of origin, and who almost by definition will not have much local knowledge. Fortunately the National Library of Scotland provides a superb resource in the form of online Ordnance Survey maps from the mid-19th Century, which I find to be an indispensible companion when researching places of origin (or more often transit). -----Original Message----- From: Jim BAIRD via Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2015 9:32 AM To: sct-islay@rootsweb.com Subject: [SCT-ISLAY] Census Errors Just to add a side-note to the current discussion, and to protect the good name of the many volunteer transcribers involved, their instructions are to transcribe AS THE ORIGINAL WAS WRITTEN. They are NOT to interpose their own thoughts or interpretations where the original is reasonably clear, regardless of their own local knowledge of names and places. Because to do so is to provide an INTERPRETATION (i.e. subjective), whereas their task is to provide a TRANSCRIPTION (i.e. objective) and leave any interpretation to the researcher. This can be quite difficult to do, especially if you KNOW the original document is wrong. But as I'm sure you will agree, true researchers would always want to get as close as possible to the document as it was written. All the best Jim Bairdformer FreeCEN County Coordinator for Argyllshire and Renfrewshire --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus