General question re: Family Search 1860 census, Virginia

16thVA

First Sergeant
Joined
Dec 8, 2008
Location
Philadelphia
Hello. I was trying to get some specific numbers on immigrant residents in various towns in West Virginia counties. I did a search on Family Search with residence as "Martinsburg Virginia" and got about 10,000 results. Martinsburg, according to the 1860, census had about 3,000 residents. Did they duplicate listings in the census? Also, in the original 1860 census of Virginia cities and towns they have a listing for Grafton, Taylor County, but the original census books don't have Grafton separately counted, so how did they get the numbers?

My main interest is in the numbers of immigrants brought into towns on the B&O rail line.

Virginia population of cities and towns
 
Hello. I was trying to get some specific numbers on immigrant residents in various towns in West Virginia counties. I did a search on Family Search with residence as "Martinsburg Virginia" and got about 10,000 results. Martinsburg, according to the 1860, census had about 3,000 residents. Did they duplicate listings in the census? Also, in the original 1860 census of Virginia cities and towns they have a listing for Grafton, Taylor County, but the original census books don't have Grafton separately counted, so how did they get the numbers?

My main interest is in the numbers of immigrants brought into towns on the B&O rail line.

Virginia population of cities and towns

 
Hello. I was trying to get some specific numbers on immigrant residents in various towns in West Virginia counties. I did a search on Family Search with residence as "Martinsburg Virginia" and got about 10,000 results. Martinsburg, according to the 1860, census had about 3,000 residents. Did they duplicate listings in the census? Also, in the original 1860 census of Virginia cities and towns they have a listing for Grafton, Taylor County, but the original census books don't have Grafton separately counted, so how did they get the numbers?
In my experience, the results for any search request return with results outside the original request. So you might request data for Martinsburg and the first 2,000 results are Martinsburg itself and then the next 2,000 are neighboring towns. Usually these results are ranked so the returns for the specific query come first and the subsequent returns come in a decreasing likelihood order (in this case, farther and farther away from the original town). If you scan the returns on your Martinsburg search you ay find the last lines are for relatively distant locales.

I can't answer the issue to Grafton specifically - my guess would be that they know now which Census district covered that community and have tagged them to return on a search for Grafton - even though the original Census documents didn't have Grafton segregated. If my guess is true then again you'd be looking at best guess returns rather than reliable data.

Both Ancestry and FamilySearch are presenting data as a way to make locating records easier for modern day searchers. Their goal is not to end up with a reliable data set - their goal is to get a satisfactory return for people who may or may not have reliable search terms. So while using FamilySearch as a way to begin examining the number of immigrants in an area would work, I wouldn't use it as a final or sole source of information.
 
In my experience, the results for any search request return with results outside the original request. So you might request data for Martinsburg and the first 2,000 results are Martinsburg itself and then the next 2,000 are neighboring towns. Usually these results are ranked so the returns for the specific query come first and the subsequent returns come in a decreasing likelihood order (in this case, farther and farther away from the original town). If you scan the returns on your Martinsburg search you ay find the last lines are for relatively distant locales.

I can't answer the issue to Grafton specifically - my guess would be that they know now which Census district covered that community and have tagged them to return on a search for Grafton - even though the original Census documents didn't have Grafton segregated. If my guess is true then again you'd be looking at best guess returns rather than reliable data.

Both Ancestry and FamilySearch are presenting data as a way to make locating records easier for modern day searchers. Their goal is not to end up with a reliable data set - their goal is to get a satisfactory return for people who may or may not have reliable search terms. So while using FamilySearch as a way to begin examining the number of immigrants in an area would work, I wouldn't use it as a final or sole source of information.


Thanks for the suggestions, I will look at the original microfilm copies on Internet Archive and see what I can find.
 
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