[or-roots] Census information cross referencing

Leslie Chapman opera_70 at yahoo.com
Sat Dec 1 10:59:21 PST 2012


I have recently been on a quest to find the parents of one of my buttonhole relatives in the 1910 census on Heritage Quest. I got so aggravated with the overall problems there I filed a tech support entry concerning their "Sinslaw" precinct.
Right now I am trying to figure out where Hazel Dell precinct listed in Lane Co up to 1910 is, it is in Cascade national Forest Reserve, but Google earth and USGS do not have any such place name. Not having any luck finding precinct maps either except recent ones. 
Anyway in my communications with HQ tech people I received this bit of information;
Regarding the pagination differences between ProQuest’s Ancestry Library Edition and HeritageQuest Online, please refer to the information below. I have no information regarding Family Search:1.    Ancestry created their own census name indexes, including the 1900 Federal Census.  They decided to use the Enumeration District and the handwritten page number as their method of identifying each census image.2.    HeritageQuest created their own census name indexes, too.  However, they decided to use the stamped page number as their method of identifying each census image.  The stamping was done by the National Archives just before they microfilmed the census.  (Note: HeritageQuest was acquired by ProQuest in 2001.  HeritageQuest now exists only as a product name.)3.    There wasn’t an industry standard when these two companies began indexing the census records.  Either method is still considered acceptable, but it does make it
 frustrating to search for the same image in both products.  The ED page method is becoming the norm, and it was used for the 1940 US Census Community Project.  ProQuest was a major partner in that project, and for that reason the 1940 Census in HeritageQuest Online will be using the ED page method.4.    Elizabeth Shown Mills is a highly-respected professional genealogist who wrote an excellent book titled, “Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace (2nd Edition)”.  It’s considered by many to be the best guide to citing historical sources such as census records.   I recommend that you get a library copy of her book for examples on how to cite your sources taken from online commercial databases.  Also, you can visit her Amazon page for more information: http://www.amazon.com/Elizabeth-Shown-Mills/e/B001JP7TY0/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_15.    For HeritageQuest Online, your citation should always indicate it is
 the stamped page number to help avoid confusion, e.g., “page A-141 (stamped)”.
Even though this doesn't' address Family Search's method of indexing hopefully this will help some of you even though it doesn't really solve the problem, at least we now have it better defined.
Les C
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