* 'lumping' households within same census

[santatraugott]

I am finding that the Advanced Source Templates work very well for me as I am trying to emulate the source citations in Evidene Examined. Basically, I am happy to be a "splitter" with regard to census households --i.e., repeat the same basic information about the census for each household as a separate source citation. I would prefer, though, not to create a separate complete citation for each individual in the Household. I had thought that the way to accomplish this was to use the "where within" field for a specific citation. To my surprise, the Advanced Source Template for the U.S. Federal Census images, does not have a field for this. I went to preferences/sources/advanced/federal census to try to edit the definitions, but it didn't let me add in this field. I suspect I am missing something, but it so, what?

And more generally, how do people handle lumping individuals in the same household in the same citation, whilst splitting census citations for different households within the same census?

[AdrianBruce]

My own take on that, would be that if you have identified the household, then under normal circumstances there is no need to use a "where within source" type field to identify the precise line that "John Smith" appears on. Any transcript or image should lead the reviewer to identify the line containing John Smith simply from the name on the form and the fact that the source is being cited against "John Smith".

The Elizabeth Shown Mills formats effectively identify the household by a page or household number or .... They give the "person of interest" - usually the householder but occasionally "XX in the household of YY". There is no attempt to alter each citation for each person by giving the individual's line number.

The one exception to the above is going to come with institutions where you need to be able to home on on the entry for (say) Corporal J Jones in the battalion (or whatever). I'd be tempted to replace the household number by a page and line number there. Having said that.... When I look at the US Census Source Template Definition in the Advanced Collection, I see a page number but I don't see a household number. That feels a little odd to me because a US Census page can be quite big and being able to quickly zoom into the right household using the household number, would seem useful.

I'd be tempted to alter the page number to become page and household number - or page and line number in the case of an institution.

[SantaT]

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it’s sufficient to identify the household, and the specific individual within will be easily spotted on the page when (and if) the reader consults it. So, the “Person of Interest” would be, e.g. Benjamin Williams Household, whether I’m citing the page for a fact about Benjamin, or a fact about his wife or one of his children. That makes sense to me. I’ve read and reread the Census chapter in Evidence Explained and don’t see that she offers another solution.

I’m guessing that the reason that the Advanced Source Template doesn’t offer the “where within” option is that it really doesn’t fit within the EE framework, to which the Advanced templates seem to be synced.

[Gowermick]

Whilst I use generic sources, not templated ones, I do use the same source for anyone on the same page, regardless of whether they are in same household! So related neighbours in my tree on the same page get same source!
Furthermore, if a household is spread over 2 pages, I distinguish who is on which page.by using a different source for each page.
In effect, I create a separate source for each census image/page. I could if I wanted, attach the census media to the source, but personally I think that is overkill, with 1000’s of media links to maintain

[arthurk]

I'm currently tidying up my census sources after splitting them, and adding transcripts and media links. I've come across a related issue, where there are two households (both of interest to me) at the same house/dwelling/property/address.

I had been planning to have a separate source for each household, but in some cases this seemed to be going too far, eg a widowed man as a separate household in the same house as a married daughter and her family - in this case, having the same source helps to emphasise the connection between them. So I've now decided on a separate source for each property, and where some of my families are living close to each other, that can mean several sources referring to the same census page.

I'm not a fan of Evidence Explained etc (unnecessarily complicated for my purposes), but I was curious to see what might be recommended for cases like this and came across this post:

https://www.evidenceexplained.com/node/2016

I was quite surprised to see that EE's recommendation is to have a single source for the whole page, with the relevant heads of household named in its title. However, I think that makes the title too long, and some of the names would be harder to spot in FH's source records window. (If you don't include names in your census source titles, this wouldn't be a problem.)

So for me, source-per-property/address hits the sweet spot between source-per-household and source-per-page. Anyway, food for thought, and others may reach different conclusions.

[AdrianBruce]

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it’s sufficient to identify the household, and the specific individual within will be easily spotted on the page when (and if) the reader consults it. ...

That's it.

... I’m guessing that the reason that the Advanced Source Template doesn’t offer the “where within” option is that it really doesn’t fit within the EE framework, to which the Advanced templates seem to be synced.

Yes, and bear in mind also that ESM herself wrote the book effectively ignoring genealogy software (her target is the printed report) and that would include ignoring GEDCOM and its "where within". If she didn't see the necessity for a "where within", it wasn't included.

[AdrianBruce]

... I had been planning to have a separate source for each household, but in some cases this seemed to be going too far, eg a widowed man as a separate household in the same house as a married daughter and her family - in this case, having the same source helps to emphasise the connection between them. ...

I'd agree with using the same source for that house. Looking at the 1921 census for my Nana and Grandpa, according to the free results list, they are in one schedule, and her parents, in the same house, are in a separate household, even though they live in the same house and, I presume, eat at the same table, wash in the same sinks, etc. I intend to make one source do for the two households, though I'll have to alter some of my usual items to include not one, but a pair of schedule numbers (say), and link a pair of images to the one source record.

[tatewise]

I think there has been a misunderstanding of the meaning of Method 1 'splitting' and Method 2 'lumping' Source Citations.
See FHUG Knowledge Base advice on Recording from a Census Record that explains the concepts with worked examples.

To summarise:

• 'splitting' puts all relevant details about a census household in the Source record, the Citation holds little or nothing.
  That is the recommended method for recording Census record households.
• 'lumping' only identifies the census year collection in the Source Record, the household details are in the Citation.