* 1921 UK Census AS Source Template

[RS3100]

Margaret,

The "Marriage or Orphanhood" column in the 1921 census, which is dual purpose according to the age of the individual, uses the existing AS built in "MarriageCondition" function, with the additional options for Both Alive etc. added to the drop down list. To quote the AS help for the census editor, "This information is not saved anywhere unless the user chooses the Auto Source option on the main screen to create a transcript of the census in the source text".

If you do choose to create a transcript of the source text, which is saved in the Text from Source tab of the source record, the selected information will be recorded in the transcript.

As with the completed years of marriage and number of children born/still living/died in the 1911 census template, I have also defaulted the 1921 census template to not create local notes attached to the census fact for the "Education", "Number of children under 16" and "Ages of children" columns, although that can be changed in the census template editor within AS if required, as explained in the built-in help file.

So to create a local note for the Education: Whole time/Part time condition: with Census selected as the source type in AS, select Census Templates from the Tools menu. Use the "Region" and "Year or Description" drop downs in the new window to select England and 1921, and click on the required column heading in the Census Columns list box - "Education". There is a "Recording" option to the right of the box for those columns that allow local notes to be created. You can change the drop-down selection from "Don't Record (except in source text)" to appending a local note to the census event, or the occupation event for the individual. Remember to save the change(s) before closing the editor.

You can also enable the creation of local notes for the number and ages of children by that method if desired as well, but as I say the built in function currently used for the "Marriage or Orphanhood column doesn't have that facility.

@NickWalker - Nick, if the Marriage or Orphanhood column type was changed to "Generic", would that affect anything in the internal workings of AS? If that is possible, it would allow a local note to be created for the values in that column, but the note would variously state any of the options chosen for the individual concerned, from "Marriage or Orphanhood: Single" to "Marriage or Orphanhood: Both Dead", e.g. you wouldn't be able to enable it for the children's orphanhood condition whilst suppressing it for the adult's marriage condition, or vice-versa.

The next decision I suppose would be whether all of those columns are set to create local notes by default, leaving the user to disable them if not required, or the reverse. If you do decide to include this template in AS Nick, I'll leave that decision to you

[klm2OUMK]

I have now used the 1921 Template a few times and it seems to work OK ,thank you. Very useful at the moment

[MLawrence]

Dear RS3100
Thank you so much for the the suggestions and advice for amending the template, this works really well for me. (As does the rest of the template for this census).

Kind regards
Margaret

[jmurphy]

Late to the party, but if anyone wants the blank forms and instructions for the 1921 Census as a reference, they can be downloaded for free via TNA's Discovery here. Link courtesy Audrey Collins on Twitter (@AudreyCollins23).

https://twitter.com/AudreyCollins23/sta ... 9901274116



https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov. ... r/C3716641

[Ruth_W]

I’ve also downloaded it (the first time I’ve done this, took a couple of goes …) and used it successfully. Thanks. One piece of feedback - could the autotext template have a heading Marriage or Orphanhood, as on the original form, rather than simply Marriage as now?

[RS3100]

Ruth,

It is possible, but with caveats. The column headings that appear in the data entry grid are just hints to help identify the corresponding column on the census form when transferring the information from the form into AS. If you hover the mouse pointer over any of the column headings, a text bubble should open next to the mouse pointer containing the full column title as it appears on the form.

I could alter the column text as it appears in the title bar of the entry grid in AS to say "Marriage or Orphanhood", but the consequences of that would be that either the column would have to be widened disproportionately to the longest text it contains, or the title bar would have to be increased in depth to accommodate the full title. The consequences of that would be less overall information visible in the date entry window with more scrolling required, either left to right when adding data to columns or vertically depending on the number of individuals to be entered and hence the number of rows. Another effect would be a correspondingly longer comma delimited title line in the text from source generated by AS, possibly making the entry less easy to read for example, in the citation window.

I've tried to keep the 1921 template consistent with the existing census templates in AS by utilising abbreviated column headings for the above reasons, although I appreciate your point in relation to the dual-use of the marriage or orphanhood column in the 1921 census and perhaps better indicating the nature of the column and information entered into it, in the resulting text from source. If you use the "Auto" button to create the text from source, it uses the abbreviated column headings as they appear in the entry grid, for the same delimited values in the text from source entry. That is a design decision by Nick and beyond the control of census templates. You can see similar abbreviated column headings for example in the 1911 census template.

So with that in mind I can change the heading, but with the preference that it should be kept as short as possible, as a hint to the nature of the column rather than its full title. So what would be your preference? "Marr/Orph" perhaps?

[Ruth_W]

Thanks. I hadn’t fully appreciated the technicalities. Leave it as it is - it’s not a major problem, just something I noticed wasn’t quite right (to my mind).

[RS3100]

Ruth,

If it is of use to you (or anyone else) I've changed the short-title of the "Marriage or Orphanhood" column, as it appears in the data input box and text from source, to "Marr/Orph'd".

I've also added a drop-down for "None" to the number of children under 16 column, which I realised was previously missing. It should save a few taps on the keyboard over time

Census-England-1921.xml

(10.16 KiB) Downloaded 79 times

[NickWalker]

I wonder if I could gather some opinions about the children's ages columns. In Phil's template he has amalgamated the multiple columns for each age so it would appear like this:

CensusChildrenAgeAS.JPG (12.86 KiB) Viewed 1472 times

Whereas the FH DEA version formats in a similar way to the census form:

CensusChildrenAgeFH.JPG (19.82 KiB) Viewed 1472 times

This does make the source text version of the census much wider but is closer to the original.

I'm inclined to stick with the single column format as Phil has proposed. I don't think it really matters that it isn't exactly as it is on the form, it still shows the same information. The census image is there if you want to see exactly how it looked. The census templates have always deviated from the original forms where it is more convenient: for example the earlier UK census records have two columns for age of male and age of female but AS (and DEA) always separate these into a column for age and a column for gender.

[satyricon]

Nearly every single 1921 census I have seen so far makes a right mess of these columns and my assumption is that people didn't really understand what they were being asked. 14 out of the 16 returns I have seen have the markings crossed out by the enumerator and re-entered - and not always correctly.

Based on that, I think it might be better to have the "summary" column where you can deduce what the data was supposed to have been and enter it accordingly. There does not appear to me to be any value in adding all the extra columns, and I agree with you when you say the image is there for reference if required. The text transcription in my view is most useful for searching, and no-one is going to be searching for "X"

[RS3100]

Nick, obviously I am biased

My main use of the text from source is for quick references to the content of the census form, e.g. when carrying out further research on an individual who appeared on that page and similar checks. So I prefer the text to be as clear as possible, and to that end also each line to be as short as possible whilst maintaining clarity. If I want to go into more detail, I open the original image as you suggest - appreciating that sometimes the transcribed text is more legible than the original though!

To that end, I separate multiple children's ages in the last column of the 1921 census with colons rather than commas. That way, when reading the text from source it makes it more obvious which is the "number of children" entry, and which numbers relate to the children's ages, as I can rely on the commas in each line of text to act only as delimiters between individual columns.

So the information in your first image appears as "6,3:5:8:8:8:10" in my text from source.

On the other hand, if you're asking about a rich-text source template, I don't use them so if that is the case ignore me, although I recall several posts on the forum about attempting to fit templated grids to printed page widths, and again in that case I suspect shorter is better?

Edit: And I agree with Adrian's very valid points too.

[LornaCraig]

Nick, I'm happy to stick with the single column format. Much more compact.

[tatewise]

The grid is a transcript rather than an attempt to mimic the form, so the single-column format is better, especially as wide tables are a problem in rich text. As has been said, the image is available if the actual form needs to be seen.

However, the separators between the ages in that column need careful consideration as mentioned by RS3100.
The Tools > Options > General settings - source text allows a Plain Text Census Grid to have Comma , separators.
So the ages column must NOT use commas as separators to prevent upsetting a Grid with Comma , separators.
Any advice or syntax checks should enforce some other separator such as colon or semicolon, or even simply spaces, but not a vertical bar, which is another Plain Text Census Grid separator.

[NickWalker]

Yes I take your point regarding those using plain text rather than rich text (I was indeed only really talking about the rich text version). Using a plain text grid using comma separators would already have been upset if people left the commas that would automatically appear in the birth place column. There won't be any validation - users can enter what they like into a grid cell.

[ColeValleyGirl]

There are arguments for both alternatives.

I debated myself which way to go with the DEA Source From Text (which I designed before there was an AS template), but decided to stick as close as I could to the original, so that others viewing the SfromT could see more clearly what was entered, rather than a summarisation of it. (I never publish the census image because I don't have the rights to do so, but I do publish SfT). With my approach, there's also the opportunity to enter one child on each line in that part of the grid, which would be even closer to the original. (I'd need to make a minor modification to allow X to be entered to make it even more faithful to the original, but it would be a five-minute change.).

(As an aside, when I saw a blank census form for the first place, I predicted that most people filling in that section would make an absolute dog's dinner of it -- does anyone have an example of a schedule with more than 10 children on it for example, where that's the only thing that overflows a single page? Or a couple of widowed sisters living together, each with living children?)

If anyone using the DEA wishes to, they can delete those columns from the template (by editing the rich text for the template within FH); or move them to underneath the grid after the SfromT has been created. If instructions are needed, open a separate topic rather than hijack the AS forum

[ColinMc]

Another vote for single column

[Saruman]

Thankyou for the 1921 Census Template, I have just used it in Ancestral Sources to input my first family.
I have noticed something that I do not understand. Perhaps its me being a bit thick! The Census it seems was taken on the 19th June 1921, but on the Main sheet of the Census it states : every person who is alive at midnight on night of Sunday 24th April. If it was taken in June, did they have to remember who was there in April? Am I missing something?

John

[tatewise]

See the thread Two household houses in 1921 (20142) and the postings on Fri 7th Jan 2022 that refer to an online article that explains the two dates.

[lesleyl]

As usual, I'm (very) late to the party!
I haven't updated to v7 of either FH or Ancestral Sources, so:

(1) do I need v7 of AS to get this template to work? I downloaded and tried to import it, but it's not appearing in the census drop-down list
(2) will v7 of AS work with v6 FH, or do I need to update both at the same time?

[tatewise]

(1) Probably.
(2) Yes AS V7 works with FH V6.

[lesleyl]

Thanks Mike. I'll do the upgrade to AS tomorrow.
I promised myself that I would complete a particular piece of research and get the information entered before getting distracted by v7 FH upgrade!