* Adding census dates day and month

[E Wilcock]

I have been using fh for a place study and am only now beginning to use it for my Family History.
In this case, generating a descendants report for someone revealed a problem with my census entries on which there is a full thread in the import section of this forum.

I am still having difficulty with problem solving. The search field top left of the Forum will not supply answers to a request for info on Census entry
"The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: census."

This morning I returned and this time searched the Knowledge base for Census and did find (a bit late in the day) instructions for altering the 1939 UK Register Census sentence. I have now done that.
Unfortunately I have not been in the habit of entering day and month of census in the Event or Fact.
Is there a quick way of adding full day And month to my existing 1939 UK Register entries?

And potentially all my other imported censuses.

And for those not using Ancestral sources, how do you remember the day and month of each census you enter? I put the day and month in the source but have never been able to remember all the exact dates?

[davidm_uk]

Simples....put a Notepad file on your desktop with the dates in there (add to it if you find some earlier local census returns):

1841 - 7th June
1851 - 30th March
1861 - 7th April
1871 - 2nd April
1881 - 3rd April
1891 - 5th April
1901 - 31st March
1911 - 2nd April
1939 - 29 September

[tatewise]

OR to keep it all within FH create a Note record with those dates.
i.e. Use Add > Shared Note and to view it later in Records Window select the Notes tab.

But as you say, the easiest way is to use Ancestral Sources that knows all the dates.

Use the Search and Replace Plugin to correct your 1939 Register entries.

Select LUA Pattern Mode top right.
In Search Scope on the right choose Census (INDI.CENS) to limit action to just Census Events.
(I assume they are all Individual Census Events and not Family Census (family) Events.)
In the Basic Filters below ensure only Date fields is ticked to limit action to Date fields.
In the Search box top left enter ^1939$
In the Replace box below enter 29 SEP 1939

Click the Search & Replace button lower right.

Confirm each Replace value until happy, then untick Confirm every item found and click Replace once.

The final Result Set will list all the replacements, and if anything is wrong immediately use Edit > Undo Plugin Updates.

[E Wilcock]

Thank you so much Mike. I am going to have to do that with a great many projects.
I will post some other difficulties on the Import Export section of the forum

[tatewise]

BTW: The 1841 UK Census date was actually 6th June 1841.

[RogerF]

For reasons explained elsewhere, I don't use the excellent Ancestral Sources for data entry. However I do use it to get my census dates correct. That is, I enter just the year (1841, 1851, etc), then periodically run AS for its Census Date Check and Census Flag Check features. Simple, and very effective.

[tatewise]

That is excellent advice Roger - I had forgotten about that feature.

See ancestralsources:tutorial:tools:census_flag_date_tools#census_date_check|> Ancestral Sources Tutorial > Census Date Check for an example of use.

The details are as follows:
In AS select the Census mode and use Census > Census Date Check.
Assuming the Suggested Census and New Date are correct, then simply click OK and the dates will be adjusted.

If not, then use the Re-allocate ... options below to select the correct Census.

This technique avoids the need to make a Note of the Census Dates as they are all in AS.

If you need to handle Census Dates for other countries then create a Census Template for each one, but only enter the Country, Year, Date, and other essential details (unless you wish to use the Census Grid to capture the full Census data).

[janefrances]

BTW: The 1841 UK Census date was actually 6th June 1841.

I always thought it was the 7th June as well! I'm going to have to find out how to change them to the 6th Could I use the change any fact plug in for this?

[tatewise]

Jane, use the AS 'Census Date Check' technique described earlier.

Otherwise, use the Search and Replace Plugin as described even earlier, but AS is much easier.

BTW: If you use AS to enter your Census records then the Date will always be correct.

[brianlummis]

It seems that Family Search has helped to add to the confusion. Their search page at https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1493745 gives the date as 7th June!

[janefrances]

I also have for 1891 April 13th! Don't know where that came from

[PeterR]

I always thought it was the 7th June as well! I'm going to have to find out how to change them to the 6th Could I use the change any fact plug in for this?

Perhaps because Family Search has 7 June 1841? The National Archives and Genuki both have 06 June 1841.

[arthurk]

This question of exactly which date to use for a census is one that I've been wondering about.

Since this current topic is more about using FH, I've started a new one on the Research board - Census Dates (15186) and would welcome opinions there.