Karl Plenge wrote
I'm running into a lot of situations where their name in the census is
actually incorrect, such as
James A when it should be James H
or the first and middle names transposed, such as
Ralph Samuel Green when it should be Samuel Ralph Green
I think it is important to record *what was written at the time*,
regardless of whether or not we consider this to be "wrong." When
recording Census information, I always look at the image and record what
was actually written by the Enumerator, which is not necessarily what
Ancestry's transcribers record!
Remember that - in the case of UK Censuses, at least - what is seen in
the images is what the Enumerator wrote up in their Book, copied from
the actual Census sheets filled in by (in most cases) the householder.
If there is a "mistake" it is impossible to know if this was the
Enumerator's error of if what the householder wrote was not exactly what
we think it should have been.
I have come across many instances of transposed forenames, both in
Censuses and Marriage/Death indexes. I believe that people were much
less "fussy" about their names a couple of hundred years ago. Spellings
were very fluid and I think it was probably quite common for, say, Mary
Louise who was generally known in the family as Louise, to be recorded
more or less frequently as Louise Mary.
--
Jenny M Benson
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