Thursday, April 20, 2017

Perfect Example of why you should always check the image

Never in my research has there been a better example which illustrates the importance of always clicking thru to view the linked images.  If you check the image you will see this is the page on which the census taker, Lula S. Berry is adding all the people that were left out of earlier households. She has the words "Out Of Order" written at the top of the page.  It looks like the information to find the households which they were a part of is included in the Location & Household Column along with a note on one of the earlier entries before this grouping that says Information furnished by Ms? Irvine.   It is difficult to tell what her system may have been for referencing those households.  The snippet I included is of the Record which is linked to Stamped page 261 Sheet 61A.  The people ABOVE the blue line are included on the page which is linked to the record.   It looks like it was in question whether some infants should have been included or not and the census taker waited til the last to add them.  Also the persons who are shown on the record snippet BELOW the blue line and  located Two images ahead are guests at the Imperial Hotel in Monterey TN.  Always check the image and never blindly add from the record.  Additionally, It's a good idea to check at the end of a district to see if there are any persons of interest which were left out of the initial entry and are included at the end of that district.  Browsing thru this district which is in order by the stamped page number, you will see that sometimes the sheet number doesn't follow the pattern you would expect it to follow.  Always check the image and browse a few pages before and after the entry of interest especially if it doesn't appear to be a standard enumeration.  We could blame this on the census taker or the indexer.  In my opinion the blame is on us as researchers for not checking more closely.



1940 U.S. census, Putnam County, Tennessee, population schedule, Monterey Town, Enum. Dist: 71-18, p. 261 (stamped), digital image(45 of 48), Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com/ : accessed 20 April 2017); citing NARA microfilm publication T627, roll 3928.

Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627, 4,643 rolls.


Enumeration District : 71-18; Description: CIVIL DISTRICT 14, MONTEREY TOWN, DR. W. C. OFFICER´S SANITARIUM


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