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Transcription from Ancestry.com of US Census of 1920.

Item ID: 4792

It's magic!

Elizabeth (12) has lived through a full decade, but she has only aged nine years. Elizabeth (65) was 58 in 1910. One suspects vanity.

Her father is no longer "Daisy" but is now "Dessie."

Mama is now "Elnie."

"Sydney" has become "Cleveland."

Some of these are obviously the result of careless transcription. There are now two ponts of error: (1) when the field notes are transcribed onto the official record; (2) when the official record is computerized.

This type of "change" is typical of census data and of personal documents. People frequently adopt variants of their names or different names entirely, and these choices make their way into official documents.

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