adding census transcripts to Bio section

Question

In the past I have added the census transcriptions in the Bio section. Is this o.k. ? I do add the citations to sources. Also should I add every one I find for the person or choose a few and just cite the others in the Bio section? I've seen different ideas on this. People have said census records aren't copyright . I'm not actually sharing images but transcriptions. Thoughts? Is having that info useful?

Comments

In my main desktop genealogy software I frequently cite the census as a family source, but generally do not attach it to the individuals enumerated. I always note where the census was taken and generically who was enumerated with the head of household, eg, “Town, County, State, wife and 5 children,” or “Town, County, State, widow with 2 children.” If there is something I am trying to sort out with the family, I may transcribe the census.

In another program I use, which handles facts and sources a bit differently, I have the option of adding a census “fact” to an individual (ie, head of household). If the person had different wives in the different census, I can “share” that fact with the head of household and the wife.

Since US census info is generally easy to find, I see little value in transcribing the enumeration. However, if there is something in the entry that makes it difficult to find, such as some bizarre spelling, I will note that.

Answer 1

I always add the transcription censuses (for each census) in tables on a profile in the bio (and the citations go in the ==Sources== section).  The Profile Improvement Project prefers the tables to go into the Sources section, however.  The Medieval Project doesn't like tables at all.

I prefer to have them where I can see them (I am a visual person), and I think it's great to see who lived where and with whom - and then sometimes you can pick up that the boarder married the daughter of the house, or that one of the servants was actually the ancestor you've been searching for for years.  Just putting 'John Smith was the boarder of Fred Bloggs' doesn't give me any more information.  Why was he there? Was he a relative? What was Fred Bloggs's occupation?  Was John his apprentice? and so on.

Answer 2

There are varying thoughts on what to include in the biography. As Ros noted, some prefer including a census household table, others an indented list, and others a narrative. Some projects, such as PGM, do not want tables.

My thought is to include what makes sense to add information to the story told in the biography. For example my great grandmother tells a story about names that were incorrect in the census and who lived next door in 1850 and 1855. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Whiting-2417

Answer 3

It can be helpful to copy transcription information into a WikiTree profile (personally I think the best place for it is in the Sources section), but displaying that information in a neat and organized way is the trick. 

Ideally, the biography should consist of a narrative, primarily in sentence format, with in-line source citations (using the <ref> tags) after each fact. I like to write out the most important details from the sources in the biography, and in some cases I might also add transcription detail in the Sources section (example). But it isn't entirely necessary, because I include links to the original source where the full details can be reviewed.

I took a look at the latest profile you've worked on. When you copy transcription info from Ancestry for example, and paste it into WikiTree, it loses the formatting and the info is lumped together into a paragraph. Have you tried using WikiTree Sourcer? It can do a lot of the source formatting automatically for you, and can automatically generate census data transcriptions into a table or list for you.

For some example profiles, you could take a look at previous WikiTree Challenge starting profiles and their ancestors. Or see the Examples Gallery.

Comments

I agree about keeping the census information in the sources section, as basically a footnote embedded in the citation. I think it's important to put information that might be lost, or just be a pain to review through clicking around, on profiles.

I don't like tables blocking a narrative biography. The wiki tree sourcer is great for getting things organized to make it easy to do a good narrative bio.

Answer 4

To answer your first question "Is this o.k.?": Yes it is OK.

Personal preferences vary among WikiTree'ers. Personally I like the censuses inserted as tables in the Biography as a figure to accompany the text, but some others don't.

Comments

Hear hear, Joe. There are many different styles on WikiTree for this census case and others, with no single best approach. It is healthy that profile managers can follow their own tastes, within the written WikiTree rules.

Answer 5

I like to include census information in narrative form, including details that may inform the genealogy or that I think might provide important details for a person's life story. (For example, the ages and birthplaces of a person's children can indicate when that person moved from one place to another.)

I do not like to rely on the transcripts found on Ancestry, FamilySearch, etc., because those transcripts sometimes have errors and because the transcripts (at least for U.S. censuses from 1850 and later) typically omit details that I think may be important.

Comments

Sidebar but related topic: this is why I cite the census image and not the census index page.

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Your answer came closest to my practice and how we handle the censuses for the Acadian project.  We like to have them in the biography narrative as they show the residences and changes in family composition. Particularly interesting is when a parent or an adult sibling is living in the household as there whereabouts might not otherwise be known.  Or where you can see many related people living near each other in a village. Then we add the translation or transcript in blockquotes within the source citation so others can read it for themselves.