Census Administration: Sub-Districts Table Help

Each district of a census of Canada is divided into sub-districts. Generally a sub-district corresponds to a township, town, large village, or a ward in a city. The 6 character identifier of the census, and the name and numeric identifier of the district containing the sub-districts are displayed at the bottom and top of the table.

All of the information that the application requires to know about a sub-district (or enumeration division) is collected in the Sub-District Table.

This form presents the information on all of the sub-districts and enumeration divisions in a requested district as a table that can be manipulated like a spreadsheet. If authorized you can alter the value of any fields in the table, and can add and delete rows from the table. If you hold the cursor over any field in the form, or over one of the buttons, context specific help pops up.

The column headers of the table respond to mouse clicks. If you click on the left button of the mouse the column header and the contents of the column are hidden from view, permitting you to shrink the horizontal space required to display the contents of the table. If you then click the left button of the mouse while holding it over the narrow space where the column header was previously, the header and contents of the column are displayed.

If you click the right button of the mouse while holding it over a column header, then the space used to display the contents of that column is increased by 50%. This is useful when the description of the subdistrict is unusually long, for example in the Prairie Provinces.

The body of the form functions like a spreadsheet, particularly with respect to special key strokes.

• The forward and backward tab keys, and the left and right arrow keys, change the selected input field in the table to the left or the right. Motion wraps around at the left and right edges of the table.
• The up and down arrows change the selected input field in the table up or down one row at a time. Motion wraps around at the bottom and top of the table.
• The "Home" key repositions the text cursor at the beginning of the current input field. The "End" key repositions the text cursor after the last character in the current input field.
• The "Ctl-Home" key combination selects the first input field in the row. The "Ctl-End" key combination selects the last input field in the row.
• The "Ctl-Z" key combination discards whatever you have typed in the current input field, and restores the value to what it was when the page was first displayed.
• The "Enter" key changes the selected cell in the table down one row at a time, rather than submitting the form as happens on simpler forms.

The columns of the table represent:

• The identifier of the sub-district within the district. For some censuses (1851, 1861, 1906, 1911, 1921) this is a number. For others it is an alphabetic code, such as a letter, a combination of letters, or a letter followed by a roman numeral exponent.

  This is part of the unique key of the sub-district. Caution must be taken in changing it to ensure that the combination of sub-district and division remains unique within the district.

• The division number if the sub-district is divided into divisions. There is a separate record in this table for each division.

  This is part of the unique key of the sub-district. Caution must be taken in changing it to ensure that the combination of sub-district and division remains unique within the district.

• The name of the sub-district. This does not have to be the same in all divisions of the sub-district, although that is normally the case.
• The number of pages in the population (enumeration of the living) schedule. This is a decimal number.
• The first page number in the division. In most cases this is 1. However in the 1851 and 1861 censuses the pages were not consistently numbered by the enumerators, and the pages were subsequently numbered sequentially through the entire sub-district when the original documents were microfilmed (and the originals destroyed!).
• The page increment within the division. In a few cases when the 1851 and 1861 census pages were numbered, during the microfilming process, the technician incremented the page number twice for each leaf of the schedule of the living because information about the individuals was recorded on both the recto and the verso of each leaf. In this case the application has to know that only the odd page numbers are used to identify the page[s] containing information on an individual.
• The total number of individuals in the division. This is a decimal number. This is used by the web pages that track the progress of the transcription. It is initialized to to assume that the last page of the division is half-full. In many censuses the actual number of individuals in the division is written on the last page of the census.
• Library & Archives of Canada (LAC) microfilm reel identifier.
• Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) Family History Library (FHL) microfilm reel number.
• The "Image Base", and "Relative Frame" fields identify the crucial numeric values that are used to compute the Uniform Record Locator (URL) of the image of the first page of the population schedule. The exact meaning of these two fields depends upon the census. These are decimal numbers.
• The number of images for this division on the web site. This is a decimal number.
• A column of descriptive remarks.
• A button to add a division after the current row. The new row is added with the same sub-district identifier, name, LAC Reel identifier, and LDS Reel identifier as the current row. The division number is set to one higher than the division number of the current row. Note that the application does not ensure uniqueness of the record key.
• A button to delete a sub-district or enumeration division from the table.
• A link to the form for editting the Page table for the division.
• For some censuses a button to display the first image in the division.

Once you have made all of the changes to the data you apply the changes to the database by using the mouse to click on the Update Database button. Alternatively you can use the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl-S or Alt-U. If you have accidentally created divisions with duplicate identification fields they are flagged and you must resolve the duplication before submitting the changes.