To help efficiently working with sources, Pedigree Forge has the ability to help you add children from a census transcript. The extra time it might take to transcribe the census form is therefore saved by creating the children automatically.
In the following example, we have created a source from the 1861 census for “Down House”, in Down, Kent, where Charles and Emma were living with their children. Only the family members have been transcribed: there were many servants and visitors too.
Link the source to Charles and Emma, as described already and make sure either Charles or Emma are the active person, showing in the person edit panel. Currently only one child has been added for them: William, born 1839. Click on the person in house icon button, located above the Children Table:
This will show the “Census Children Dialog”, which should extract the children’s names from the census transcript we have just made:
The list of the current children is shown on the left of the dialog. Use the “Add” check boxes to decide which children should be added. As William is already a child, we should uncheck him (we don’t want to create him again).
Notice how the places are shown in red. This is because they haven’t been recognised, coming straight from the census transcript (it does expand “Do” i.e. ditto marks from lines above). Below we have changed Henrietta’s entry to “Down, Kent”, which is recognised:
The other children need the place of birth changing too. You can do this manually, or, if you press “Ctrl” + “D” on the keyboard, the details from the box above will be copied down.
You are then ready to apply the changes. Clicking the “Apply” button will add the children, along with their specified place of birth, and an estimated year of birth, based on their age:
Note: the add children from census dialog should be seen as an aid. It will need manually alteration, and checking that information it suggests is as expected.