The overall readability of this census varied among the enumerators. The potential for an error exists with initials, and between letters the "a" and "o", and between the letters "e" and "i". The microfilm quality also varied among the pages. Where the quality of the microfilm was bad, or where the emunerators writing could not be read, an attempt was made to determine the entry by using a previous census and/or marriage licenses. Entries where the transcriber was not confident of the name are flagged with a "?".

Many thanks go to Shirleyan Phelps , who compared the transcription with the microfilm, and identified many mistakes. Her efforts have eliminated significant errors that would have escaped otherwise. To quote Shirleyan, "I am reminded every time I look at census records of how much folks need to look at the records themselves; a transcription is merely a guide but folks give up when they don't find name/age just like they want it".

Some of the difficulties transcribing this census are described below by township.

Lee's Mill

Overall the handwriting was good and the quality of the microfilm fair, therefore the transcripton for this disctrict should be accurate. Areas of caution are:

The enumerator tended to get very fancy with capital letters. At times, this made it difficult to determine which letter was intended. For example, the loop on a "T" frequently made it look like a "F".

The enumerator like to use large loops on letters such as g, h, j, etc. These loops overlaid the names directly above, or below, and caused some difficulty in transcribing the names.

The "S" and "L" looked very much alike. There may be a few errors in which the "S" and "L" were transcribed incorrectly; for example, Samuel S. Woodley might be transcribed as Lamuel L. Woodley.

Frequently the enumerator would drop one letter in a name with double letters; for example, "Cherry" is recorded as "Chery".

Occassionally the enumerator would drop a letter off the end of a name; for example: Lear instead of Leary; Mathia instead of Mathias

Plymouth Township

The transciption of the first 30 pages of this district should be accurate, since the overall handwriting was good and the quality of the microfilm was fair. The last 21 pages were apparently done by a different enumerator who found writing and spelling a challenge, thus the transcription of the last 21 pages of this district is more error prone. Areas of caution are:

The enumerator occassionally checked the "Married during census year" for individuals who were single. This transcriber suspects that the enumerator mistakenly checked this column instead of the "Widowed" column.

Page 26 and 27 are out of order. The correct order is 25, 27, 26, 28.

Page 32, family 310 - If William Jackson was born in Georgia, then N.C. could not be the birth place of his children's father.

Page 32, family 335 - If Isrel Jenkins was born in S. C., then N.C. could not be the birth place of his children's father.

Page 42 and 43 are out of order. The correct order is 41, 43, 42, 44.

The enumerator frequently failed to close letters so that an "a" may appear to be "ee".

Vowels and double letters were frequently dropped; for example, William appears as Willam, Morris appears as Moris, Harris appears as Haris.

Letters were reversed; for example, Waters appears as Watres.

Scuppernong Township

It appears that the enumerator for this district was working above his capability. Overall the handwriting was poor. Frequently "t's" were not crossed and "i's" were not dotted. The loop on a "d" was so low that often it appears to be an "a". The enumerator frequently failed to close letters so that an "a" may appear to be "ee", "ei", etc. and a "d" may appear to be "el", "il", "ee", etc. Also the style of letters changed at at random and names are misspelled. There are times when it appears the enumerator could not spell a name, so he scribbled it instead. Sometimes the enumerator lists last name first and at other times the first name was first.

The order and spelling of names are transcribed exactly as they appear in the census, however the transcriber took the liberty to make corrections in the names in the index.

Below is an example of the letters that this transcriber had difficulty distinguishing between.

a <=====> o, ie, ee
d <=====> a, ie, ee
e <=====> i
l <=====> t
u <=====> ee, or ei
m <=====> rn
n <=====> ri or er
ri <=====> n
w <=====> iu

This district was transcribed from microfilm and verified using an original copy from the NC archives. However the poor quality has certainly lead to many errors.

Page 15 lines 46 - 49: Indicates individuals are Insane and bedridden or crippled. Suspect enumerator made an error.

Page 16 lines 16 - 22: A large ink blot makes some names difficult to decipher.

Dwelling/Families are not in same sequence as the page numbers.

It also appears that the enumerator filled in the place of birth with N. C. and then wrote over top of that entry, thus there may be some problems with the accuracy.

Skinnersville Township

Overall the handwriting was good, however the enumerator tended to get very fancy with capital letters. This made it difficult at times to determine which letter was intended. Since this enumerator tended to use initials instead of names, there is a strong possibility of a transciption error occuring. Also the enumerator liked to use large loops on letters such as g, h, j, etc. These loops overlay the names directly above, or below, and caused some difficulty in transcribing the names.

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Return to 1880 Washington County Census Instructions and Index

Updated September 10, 2000
Gordon L. Basnight
gbasnight@mindspring.com