Census citation uncertainties

I continue to be uncertain about the typical or appropriate or better way to cite certain aspects dealing with census images.

I am looking at the QuickCheck Model Microfilm: Population Schedules 1880-1940 on page 248 (third edition).

The first reference note includes both page 246-B (stamped) and sheet 12-B.

1A. My first question:  are both necessary?  Wouldn't either one by itself enable a person to find this census page/sheet and to distinguish it from another census page/sheet?  If it is not necessary to have both in the citation, is it customary/traditional to use both anyway? If only one is necessary, is one of the two possibilities the customary one to use?  [I see that your example on pages 282-83 for Roman Ramon Diaz only includes sheet 6-B and does not include p. 382 (stamped) (verso)/(back).]

I'm hoping that your answer is that only one is necessary.  My software (Legacy) is set up to put the page numbers after the enumeration district number.  As I understand EE 6.8 and this example, if a stamped page number is used, it goes before the enumeration district number, but if a penned page number is used, it goes "immediately after the ED number to which it belongs."  Because of this software restriction, I can't (properly) use stamped page numbers.

(1B. Second question:  since, as I understand it, only penned page numbers are supposed to go after the ED numbers, can we eliminate having to say "penned"?  That is, just having p. 7 instead of p. 7 (penned)?)

2. Without having looked at this example, I would not have put "-B" after the stamped page number (although I would have put it after the sheet number).  Based on EE 6.8 indicating that a census page/sheet is often a part (e.g., fourth) of a a larger sheet that was folded to create four or other multiple sides, with each of the sides having "an added A, B, C, or D, etc." -- in other words, the letter is clearly associated with the side/sheet from the very beginning -- and based on my understanding that stamped page numbers were added by the Bureau much later, my first thought is that the letter has nothing to do with the stamped page number.

If I was using just the stamped page number and not the sheet number, again based on EE 6.8, I would have instead referenced it as p. 246 (stamped) (verso) or p.246 (stamped) (back).  Third question:  what am I missing?  What is the reasoning behind putting the B after the page number as well as after the sheet number?

Thank you.

Submitted byEEon Fri, 08/14/2015 - 14:31

Newoanash, in answer to your 3 questions:

Q1 “Is it necessary to cite both the ED sheet number and the stamped page number?”

A:  Not necessarily. Sometimes, one number or the other will be illegible, inconsistently numbered, missing, or otherwise problematic. Using both the sheet number and the stamped number will ensure that the right one is easily found; but when there is no problem, there is no reason to consider both mandatory. On the QuickCheck model, we used both so that programmers would build both fields into their templates and thereby allow for all contingencies. Apparently, the developer of your software decided that just one would suffice in all cases.

Q1 “Since, as I understand it, only penned page numbers are supposed to go after the ED numbers can we eliminate having to say ‘penned’?”

A: The criteria for placement before or after ED numbers is not whether the number is stamped or penned. Amid the great variety of censuses that we use across time and national bounds, we find stamped or penned numbers in either position.

The significant factor is what the number represents. If the page or sheet number represents the pagination for that enumeration district, then it follows the ED number. If the page or sheet  or folio number represents the pagination for a larger jurisdiction (city, county, state, whatever) then it follows the identification of that jurisdiction—which means it will come before the smaller district number.

If there are both stamped and penned pagination being used on a specific census, then clarity is served by specifying exactly which pagination system we are citing.

Q2: “Without having looked at this example, I would not have put ‘-B’ after the stamped page number [based] on EE 6.8 indicating that a census page/sheet is often a part … of a larger sheet that was folded to create … multiple sides, with each of the sides having ‘an added A, B … etc.’”

A: Newonash, here I can reduce your thoughtful analysis down to a really short answer: You've found a typo. The ‘B’ should not appear after both numbers on that QuickCheck Model. It’s now flagged for correction in the next printing. Thanks!

Thanks very much for your clarification.

My software (Legacy) has room for both a sheet number and a page number, but it always puts the page number after the ED number, rather than giving me a choice to put the page number in front of the ED number.

My thought had been that a stamped page number, being added by the Bureau later, was a repagination of all the census pages for something bigger than an ED, such as a county, city, or state.  I'm understanding you to say that there were, at times, more than one census taker for a particular ED, each one of them having their own sheet 1, sheet 2, etc., and that sometimes the Bureau has only repaginated the cenus pages for that ED.  If my understanding of what you said is correct, how do I know what entity or entities the page numbers represent?  The only thing that I can think of is that each time I would have to take a lot of time to browse through innumerable census pages in addition to the one that I am interested in to see whether the page numbering sequence includes an ED, county, or city different from the ED on the census page that I'm focused on.

Dennis, I'm assuming that your para. 2 refers to this passage of my reply:

Q1 “Since, as I understand it, only penned page numbers are supposed to go after the ED numbers can we eliminate having to say ‘penned’?”

A: The criteria for placement before or after ED numbers is not whether the number is stamped or penned. Amid the great variety of censuses that we use across time and national bounds, we find stamped or penned numbers in either position.

If so, then the main problem here is an expectation that the Census Bureau, in each type of quirky situation, had a specific policy that it applied. Even census bureaucrats didn't have their policies that refined. {smile} If there was a way to create a variation, someone was going to do it.  Our own practices and policies, as researchers, have to be adaptable and we handicap ourselves if we try to assign proscriptions. We cannot say that a stamped number must always represent a larger unit than than a penned number. There are instances in which even the boots-on-the-ground guy used a stamper to number his (or her) pages.

Re the last four lines, no. We don't have to "browse through innumerable census pages ... to see whether the page numbering sequences includes" all possible variants.  But when we extract a number from a record, we do need to take the time to consider what that particular number represents, wherever it appears and in whatever context.

Submitted byJan_Son Sun, 08/16/2015 - 08:56

I, too, have a question on page numbers and sheet numbers. On the censuses that I have been working on so far, sheet B does not have a page number. It is stamped on the previous sheet (A).

I have been noting it as page 345 (stamped on previous sheet).

Is there a better way for me to cite the page number?

Submitted bynewonashon Mon, 08/17/2015 - 18:30

I'm sorry, but I'm still confused.  I still don't understand how one can look at a page number on a particular census page/sheet and; without knowing anything more, have any idea whether the page number is referring to the ED or something else.  Without knowing that, we don't know whether the page number goes before or after the ED number in the reference note.

Dennis, can you post a sample of a page that confuses you?  Typically, for the census years that use enumeration districts and supervisor's districts, there is a pre-printed section at the top of the page, with blank lines to fill in the ED no., the SD no., and the sheet or page number.  (See the attached sample.) We're told explicitly what that set of numbers represent. There's no guesswork. No numbers on the page should represent anything smaller than the ED, except for the household and family numbers.

As a rule, the numbers in the preprinted section will be penned, with (sometimes) a preprinted A, B [etc.]. Occasionally, mostly in the 20th century, the numbers added to the preprinted section will be stamped, if the enumerator has one of those rachety hand-stamps. That is why, several messages ago, I said it would not work to assume that a stamped number represents a jurisdiction larger than the ED.

If a penned page number in the preprinted section (an ED page or sheet number) is not legible then it's essential to look for the stamped numbers for the larger jurisdication and to cite that. In that case we cite that stamped number after the jurisdiction that it applies to. We would not place it after the ED number because it's not an ED number.

 

Dennis, "over-thinking" is sometimes a problem. When we find ourselves trying to catalog specific ways that something can't be absolute, that might be one indication. {smile}.  On the other hand, trying to think through all possible issues will make one a careful researcher.

Submitted bynewonashon Wed, 08/19/2015 - 12:26

EE, I (mis)interpreted your 8/17 post to say that nothing is absolute.  I took that to mean that a page number in the preprinted section might not have been put there by an enumerator, that the page number in the preprinted section might refer to something (city, county, state) other than the ED, that the typical stamped page numbers outside the preprinted section might not have been added by the Bureau, that the typical stamped page numbers outside the preprinted section might refer to the ED rather than something else, etc.  Given this perspective, I had asked in my follow-up how one would know at all whether a typical-looking census sheet, such as the one that you attached to your last post, was an aberration.  I guess I was over-thinking it.