Families split across census pages

Tombaston · Post by **Tombaston** » 03 Feb 2007 09:13

I often get a case where the head of household is at the bottom of one page and some of the family are on the top of the next page. Currently I use the reference number from the page with the head of household, add all family members and link both images in GEDCOM Census using one source per census record (method 1). The advantage I have with this is that it keeps everyone together. The disadvantage is that some of the family members should actually have a different reference number. The alternative would be to record the head on one source and the rest of the family on a second.

I am interested to know how others approach this problem. I have discovered from the 1881 transcriptions made by the LDS they put the entire family under the same reference as the head.

ID:2155

RalfofAmber · Post by **RalfofAmber** » 03 Feb 2007 09:35

I file by head reference and add the images to the multimedia object on the source (easy with the gedcom census utility).

What I also found once was some children at the end of the book as an erratum to the main entry, not just on the following page.

There's no end to the variations I find[smile]

PatrickT · Post by **PatrickT** » 03 Feb 2007 13:25

I do exactly the same. It seems much more sensible (and less work!) to keep the family together under the correct reference for the head and to link both images.

I also often come up against the opposite situation - more than one relevant household on the same census page (especially in small rural communities). Here, I generate a separate source for each household and link each into the same image.

Post by **NickWalker** » 03 Feb 2007 13:47

Yes I do the same too. The reference is still accurate as long as you consider it to be telling you where the source starts. I guess you could record the reference number as a range of folio or page numbers.

Tombaston · Post by **Tombaston** » 04 Feb 2007 08:23

Thanks all for the confirmations that what I was doing made sense.

I also have the case with two families on the same sheet so I need to look how I have handled that; I think I have used two sources.

Post by **NickWalker** » 04 Feb 2007 11:36

Again for 2 families on the same page I record as two separate entries. Gedcom Census allows you to link to an existing multimedia object so you don't need to have two for the same page.

zrlb · Post by **zrlb** » 12 Jun 2007 22:15

For the 2 families situation, I add a note beneath the auto text in the text box, noting the presence of another significant family nearby. I have cases where boarders have subsequently married into the family, or where engaged people live very close to each other. I also have found new family relationships on old census entries. Being able to see these links with the census text is very useful.

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