Hello Friends,

Here is a mini comparison to discourage anyone >from putting too much
stock into the 19th Century records.

I compared a few items in the vital records vs the census of 1869 in
Cigand, Zemplen CO. Here are some troubling differences I found: A "/"
separates the discrepant entries)

Guttman Simon/Sam, age 24/21, born in Cigand/Keresztur
Wife is Gluck Perl/Peppisz
Schwartz Jozsef/Yehuda
Elefant Emanuel married to Eszter Adler/Guttman/ Klein--same children
Weisz Bernat born in Cigand/Ladmoc
He is married to Rezsi/Rozina gluck/Sloszer >from Cigand/Poruba
Krausz Kati/Zsani is married to Joszef/Jehuda Schwartz

It is easy to get hung up on some discrepancy like these and misdirect
your research!

Best Regards,

Alex Miller, Chester CO. PA
alex.miller@juno.com

Such discrepances may be disturbing, but are worth of careful analysis.
Very often I found a family in a 1869 Census, where apparently all or some
of the children were not born by the wife ( age discrepancy) registered in
the Census, but obviously by first wife, which died before Nov.1869.
Jozsef and Yehuda is the same man.
Simon and Samuel are also being used for the same person, although not so
often.
In marriage records, one has to be careful too; to "be from" and being "born
in" are not always the same places.
With female given names there can be instances, where several names appear.
The best thing to do is just to keep them all tied to one person and wait
till all records are exhausted and then take the most probable version. The
younger the records ( death for example) the better the chance is, that the
name will be correct.
To positively identify one person in relation to others only a name is not
enough. There must be several cross references to have it confirmed.
Vladimir Bohinc
Nove Mesto nad Vahom
Slovakia