* Recording Census.

[AndyC]

I just wondered how most people record information from a Census/Electoral Roll source. Do you create a Census/Electoral Roll event or do you record Residence/Place, Occupation attributes etc? Or do you do both? This is independent of whether you use Ancestral sources or not.

[ColeValleyGirl]

For censuses:

I create an Individual Census event for each person in the household (except for servants, lodgers etc. if they're not of interest). This event records the date place and address of the census and their age, and cites the census source.

I create Occupation events for each individual with an occupation who isn't a Scholar (with date and age) again citing the census source.

If I don't have a better birth record for an individual, I will create a birth event for an individual with a calculated year.

I don't create any residence events -- they would duplicate the info in the census events, and possibly be misleading -- a census typically records where somebody was present on a particular date, not whether they resided there.

For electoral rolls:

I create a residence event for everyone at the relevant address (but only if it's a residential qualification to vote). I may create an occupation event if somebody has a another qualification to vote, but not without a lot more digging to work out what's what.

[redvanman]

Andy,
FWIW, I record Residence, Occupation as attributes and link them to a census record as a source. My rationale is that a census is very different from a person's life event like a birth or marriage that changes the lives of a small number of people: the census is a government activity that briefly and lightly touches millions of individuals. The census returns just happen to be a goldmine of information.

However, many people here may take a different view.
Alyn

[tatewise]

I follow Helen's scheme, which is also much the same as the default scheme used by AS for both Census & Electoral Roll.

Some users prefer to use a Census Event only for the head of household or principal person.
The other household members are added as Fact Witnesses with various Roles.
Sometimes, they are all just Residents, but others use their relationship such as Wife, Son, Daughter, etc.

See FHUG Knowledge Base Recording from a Census Record.

The options for Electoral Roll are less well defined, especially as the qualifying criteria for early Electoral Rolls involved not only residency but also property and business ownership.

Use the Forum Search box top right to obtained Electoral Roll entries in both the KB and the Forums.

[Mark1834]

I create individual census facts for relevant people, but not separate residence facts, as census does not not demonstrate residence. It is easy enough to convert census to residence for GEDCOM export to products such as Ancestry that don't support separate census facts.

I will record an approximate birth date and place if I do not have any other source, but not cite the census. Quite often, I have multiple possible birth details from different census years, but no definite birth registration or baptism, and more often than not they are not all consistent with each other. I would rather have a single "best fit" birth estimate than several different "facts" that are mutually exclusive. You could cite that from all the census returns, but for me it is clear where the birth details come from when viewing the individuals overall profile. IMO not every fact has to stand alone, but that's just my view, others will differ.

Occupation is case by case. I may record individual occupations, but have also created a custom attribute, "Main Occupation", that summarises the different occupations (e.g. "Farm Labourer, later Carter") for some reports and charts.

[tatewise]

Strictly speaking, Ancestry does support separate Census facts but is designed to use Residence facts to provide Census 'hints'.

The Export Gedcom File plugin in Ancestry mode substitutes Census facts with Residence facts by default.

FH V7 has Fact Flags, so you could nominate whichever Occupation fact is the main one with the Preferred flag and choose to include just that one in reports and charts.

[Mark1834]

Yes, Ancestry is weird. An Ancestry tree seems to support and correctly export census events, but accepted hints can only be saved as residence, and it won’t compare a new census hint with an existing census, only with a residence! It’s as though the hint coders had never heard of CENS...

[victor]

I download census images and save them under my census folder, sub folders in separate years. Once done I use AS to add the details to FH

Victor

[David2416]

I download census images and save them under my census folder, sub folders in separate years. Once done I use AS to add the details to FH

Victor

I do the same. Works well for me too

[AndyC]

Helen,
are you implying that in an Electoral Register, an 'R' qualification means that person lived at the specified address, but an 'O' or 'HO' qualification does not imply that they lived at the specified address? (1920's register)

As an aside, does anyone know why, in Electoral Registers from the 1920's at least, there are different qualifications for National and Local elections. My ancestor had an 'R' for national and a '-' for local.

Andy

[ColeValleyGirl]

From Electoral list abbreviations (5277) (hat tip to Nick Walker), it's complicated:

Residence (R)
Business premises (B.P)
Occupation (O)
Occupation of husband (H.O)
Naval or military voter (N.M)

BP clearly isn't a residence, but the other's probably are...

Electoral Register Codes is useful.

[AndyC]

Thanks for that.
I had naively assumed 'occupation' meant your job and not where you lived.

[tatewise]

It is a combination of both. See https://www.familytreeresources.com/ele ... sters.html that says

The business premises qualification abbreviation is rarely used because the vast majority of voters qualified as residents to vote in parliamentary elections, whereas if a voter occupied business premises, for the purposes of local government, this would be regarded as being an occupation qualification.

So the 'Occupational qualification' is because they occupied business premises presumably to carry out their job.
They theoretically could qualify as Residents in another constituency and vote there too.