Aye weel, jist a nice simple wee query, ken, before tea (the Scots 'high' version) - have a look at the 1841 census enumeration book image to see if it's a
T or an
S in the occupation field!
Not so easy, however, as there is no matching family on ScotlandsPeople; a couple of close matches for William aged 40, surname SYMESON or close variants, but no matching family group.
Now, FreeCen transcriptions are among the most reliable, so let's put faith in it, and look for all sorts of possible variants, choosing Isabella aged 12 as the least commonly occurring given name.
Only when finally searching on '
Isa *SON aged 12' in Orkney did the FreeCen matching probable family grouping come up.
(On ScotlandsPeople, unless the option is unchecked, there's an automatic final wildcard for the given name, i.e. searching for 'Isa' is equivalent to searching for ' Isa* '.)
And there was just the single match for wee 12 year old Isabella !
The normally reasonably reliable ScotlandsPeople transcription falls flat on it face in this instance, the surname having been transcribed as
GARSON .
OK, I'll admit that the enumerator's hand ain't that great, and the image is a bit messy, although not that faint, but
no way is the surname GARSON; but then, and here's the rub, I knew what it should be !
Let that be a lesson in terms of how even normally reliable websites can get it completely wrong. OK, had we been talking an Ancestry transcription, I wouldn't have been that surprised
, but for SP's sub-contractor to get it that wrong worries me.
And then, of course, this example demonstrates the continuing great value, and extremely high standard of the transcriptions on FreeCen. FreeCen operate a system where, if a transcriber can't be sure of an entry, it gets referred to someone more expert, and if they can't sort out the problem, it gets referred further to an even better expert, and so on, until there's clear agreement as to the entry.
And after all that, was it
Sailor or
Tailor ! Quite clearly from several other "S"s on the page it was
Tailor.
Wullie
PS I'd suggest a revisit to Margaret's death register entry to doublecheck that the occupation is Sailor rather than Tailor !