GENEALOGY THE “OLD WAY”
Advantages/Disadvantages

I doubt that there are many genealogists who would want to return to the “old days” when viewing census records depended on a microfilm reader and copying documents resulted in wet, white-on-black images of birth register pages. On the other hand, there is one very useful technique from those long-ago days that we should all consider employing as we research our families: copying our ancestors’ census records onto blank census forms for the appropriate year.

Why should we take the time to transcribe census records that we can print so easily from data on our computers? Sandra Goodwin, creator and host of “Maple Stars and Stripes,” mentioned two very important reasons on her latest podcast (episode 37 “Canadian National Census, 1871-1921”) at http://maplestarsandstripes.com/: 

1. “Transcribing a record forces you to study the document very carefully.”

2. “Genealogists consult their family census records multiple times. If the enumerator’s handwriting on the original census page is awful, transcribing it will mean you only have to read and decipher those terrible chicken scratches once! All future referrals will be to your transcription.”

If you’ve never transcribed a census page, give it a try! You’ll feel like the enumerator who asked your relatives questions and wrote down their answers way back when. 

RESEARCH TIP: Blank forms for the censuses are available on several website:

Ancestry.com has them http://www.ancestry.com/download/forms,

National Archives has them http://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/charts-forms/,

and the Mid-Continent Public Library has them http://www.mymcpl.org/genealogy/family-history-forms.