Transcription Tuesday – Page 5 – International Institute of Genealogical Studies

Transcription Tuesday – Census Errors

Transcriptions are needed in all genealogical research. Transcribing Skills are included in the basic level courses for our students at The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. All researchers must strive to acquire this core skill. There is no way around it. Transcriptions are extremely important for census record databases. Transcribers must be precise. However, they are usually not from the area being transcribed, so they could be unfamiliar with the names on the documents, although these may be very common to the ones researching them. For some transcribers, English may not be their first language. This means that they are transcribing letter by letter, plus trying to decipher the handwriting of different enumerators for each district. They do their best, but some entries are just their best guess. Transcription errors are not always totally their fault alone, Sometimes, it is the enumerator who misspelled the name by mistake, or guessed the spelling when the person giving the information was illiterate. With this in mind, we need to use a few strategies when searching databases. Remember, a true transcription is exactly as it is written – not editing the original text. The transcriber is entering what was written on the document – whether it is correct or not. When searching names in any database, remember to use your list of variable spellings. Record every variation that you find. Nicknames may be used as children, but then changed when they become adults. Some may use a middle name as their given name. Surnames may…

Transcription Tuesday – Definitions

The National Institute for Genealogical Studies provides valuable online education for sharpening and refining the research skills used by all levels of family historians and genealogists. Our Basic Level courses cover a wide variety of topics, delivering foundational genealogical education all researchers. The basics of research extend far beyond pedigree charts and family group sheets! Experience only comes from Practice. In last week’s post (Transcription Tuesday – Practice!), we recommended several transcription websites to explore. We also suggested a few transcription projects to try your hand at transcribing actual historic documents. Did these help you? Did they identify areas where you need to practice more? The more you read old handwriting, the easier it will become. Practice, Practice, Practice! Definitions As we continue to explore how to develop our Transcription Skills, we need to take a few minutes this week to look at the main definitions to learn. Understanding each description, and the process associated with it, will help us to cultivate the core expertise for the transcription tasks required for every document we discover. Transcription Definition: A Transcription is a true word-for-word rendering of a document with the original punctuation and spelling (i.e., an exact copy of the original, line by line, sentence by sentence, word by word, and letter by letter). All notes and marks on any page are copied as faithfully as possible in the presented formatting. It includes all spellings, capitalizations and punctuations as it was written. No corrections are made to spelling or capitalization. It includes the whole…

Transcription Tuesday – Practice!

The National Institute for Genealogical Studies online courses provide genealogical education on a wide variety of topics for those beginning to research their family history, as well as professional genealogists, and everyone in between. It is worth repeating: all family history researchers, no matter what their level of expertise, should strive to acquire this core skill. We will use it over and over! As we work to develop our Transcribing Skills, we soon realize there is a learning curve involved. Most of us are familiar with common handwriting styles. We can transcribe modern handwriting with relative ease, except for those who never did develop good penmanship. Before email and texting, we sent handwritten letters – yes, by snail mail! In that time period, we all read cursive and not many people sent typed correspondence – it was all handwritten. When we began to gather family home sources, we could easily read the handwriting; but as our genealogy research reached further back in time, we had to adjust to various older scripts in documents and correspondence. These can soon become a challenge. It takes effort to decode handwriting – sometimes word by word, and sometimes letter by letter. Our biggest advantage is PRACTICE. The more we read old handwriting; the more we will become familiar with the letters and grammar used in that time period. The more we transcribe entries from a church register or civil registrations for a specific district; the easier it will become. Repetition helps us to memorize the variations in the letters.…

Transcription Tip: Finding George

Our students at The National Institute for Genealogical Studies are encouraged to access original documents whenever possible. These are usually either fully handwritten, or have handwritten entries on forms. It is advised to transcribe all of documents we gather for our research projects. As we continue to explore developing our Transcribing Skills, we will discover the value of spending the time necessary to transcribe our original documents, especially those that are hard to decipher. All family history researchers, no matter what their level of expertise, should strive to acquire these core research skills. See below for links to our courses designed to equip our students with this vital ability. When we search original records, we will encounter many different styles of handwriting, even when they are using the same script of a certain time period. Just as today, we all have our own handwriting styles. We tend to always make certain letters in the same way, but for other letters it may vary, even depending on the word we are writing, or where the letter is positioned in that word. In the same way that other people become accustom to reading our handwriting, we begin to recognize the handwriting styles of those clerks and census enumerators in the documents we are accessing. Specific characteristics show up on the same page or for the entries for a district, like in civil registrations or church records. We can easily tell when the entries are made by a different person. Today’s Transcription Tip is the use of Transcription Cheat…

Transcription Tip: Line Numbering

As The National Institute for Genealogical Studies students begin the October rotation of courses, we continue to explore the foundational research practise of developing Transcribing Skills. See below for links to our courses designed to equip our students with this vital ability. All family history researchers, no matter what their level of expertise, should strive to acquire these core research skills. When preparing to make a transcription, it is good practice to make a digital scan of the original document and then put the physical document away. This keeps your original safe with as little handling as possible. Once you have the copy, you can make a print out and mark on it as you wish. Viewing the digital image on your computer allows you to enlarge difficult-to-read sections. Today’s Transcription Tip is the use of Line Numbering. On your printed working copy (never the original!), number the lines on the page. This will keep you on track as you start transcribing. It is so easy to lose your place and skip to the line before or after the line you are working on, especially in a document with repetitive wording. If the lines are written unevenly, you may also want to draw lines between each numbered line to keep them separated to work on each individually. Remember our Transcription Definition: A transcription is a true word-for-word rendering of a document with the original punctuation and spelling (i.e., an exact copy of the original, line by line, sentence by sentence, word by word, and letter by…

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