Massachusetts State Census, 1865 - FamilySearch Historical Records/Known Issues

Question 1
Question 1: Why are the first and last pages in many of the files from towns other than the one listed in the file title? Answer #1: These images were copied from original records which were large books containing more than one town listed alphabetically in the volume. There was no break, or blank pages, between the towns. Therefore, since each image filmed contains the right and left side of the page of the open book, the last and first images of many towns will have the final image of the preceding town on the left side of the two page image, or the first image of the next town on the right side of the final image of the town’s records.

Question 2
Question 2: When browsing Norfolk &gt; Roxbury, Ward 03, Image 34 only contains the very bottom of the right hand side of the page. Is this image available? Answer 2: The full copy of image 34 is available on image 33. Image 34 is a corrupted image of the image found as image 33. There is no missing page.

Question 3
Question 3: Why are there so many duplicate pages in this collection? Answer 3: Often those filming the original records filmed a page more than once to be sure they got the best image possible. Both images were left in the collection when it was placed online, in case one image has a portion the record which is more easily read than the other.

Question 4
Question 4: When trying to find my ancestor using Massachusetts as a birth place filter, I get no results. Can you help me with this? Answer 4: There are instances in this collection where the enumerator recorded the Massachusetts birthplace as Ms. These are mostly in Suffolk County. If you get no results with Massachusetts as the birth place, remove the Massachusetts filter from your search, or try using Ms.

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