Template talk:Cite United States census

Clarify purpose
This template seems to be best suited for genealogy. Non-genealogists may not be aware that U.S. census returns from as recently as 1930 are available, which show individual's names, addresses, age, and other information. The template documentation should explain the type of information that the template is meant for. Indeed, since overall numbers such as the population of a state are often cited in Wikipedia, but information on individuals is rarely cited, perhaps this template should have a different name. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:05, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I plan to write the documentation today or tomorrow and hopefully will address that concern. As to the name, I'm open to a change.  I realize it may not be suited for other censuses (Canada's census, for example, is available for years 1911 and earlier) so maybe putting "U.S." in the name might be appropriate, too.  Coemgenus 15:15, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that's explained a bit better now. Is there something more I should add?  Coemgenus 15:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That's a substantial improvement. If you choose a new name, you might want to consider that someone citing a census is usually citing overall numbers, such as the population of a state. The name shouldn't conflict with any existing or future template intended to cite overall statistics --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Any way to stop the accessdate from linking?
Hi. Currently the accessdate on this template automatically seems to wikilink itself. As WP:MOSUNLINKDATES now states that date linking should only be done if "germane" to the topic, is there any way that the template can be edited to prevent it from doing this? I raise this due to a concern in an ACR (raised by myself), which can be found here: WikiProject_Military_history/Assessment/John_S._Loisel/Archive1. Thanks in advance. — AustralianRupert (talk) 11:33, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I fixed it. --Coemgenus 01:22, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for that. That seems to have done the trick. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 06:00, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Enumeration district and film number
Standard citations for census references usually include an enumeration district and sometimes a film number. Can the template be modified to allow for these parameters? Here is an example citation from Ancestry.com:


 * Year: 1880; Census Place: Tip Top, Yavapai, Arizona; Roll: 37; Family History Film: 1254037; Page: 413A; Enumeration District: 22; Image: 0049

— btphelps (talk) (contribs) 04:14, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I added the enumeration district and image number. --Coemgenus (talk) 00:31, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

1940 census
Seems to be available. See website. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:06, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's been available for a few months now. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WP Japan ! 05:42, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I was thinking along the lines of this — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Use for non-US censuses
I would like to use this template for non-US censuses, specifically the UK but my question would apply equally to other nations. I am conscious that sometimes templates are used by bots and other processes to generate statistics etc., so I wouldn't want to break anything if I did. The existing field names are clearly US specific but could be mapped to some extent across to UK census ones. I could, perhaps, otherwise, 'clone' the template and modify it to suit the UK census, but a general purpose, multi-national, 'cite census' would be more elegant and efficient. It could, of course, default to the US census if not otherwise stated.

I have only briefly 'dabbled' with template writing and this would be beyond me but wonder if there would be any support (or opposition!) for such a development? If there is another, suitable, template I could use then please point me in the right direction. Thanks! KenBailey (talk) 19:14, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, I have literally just created one for the Census in the United Kingdom, namely Cite United Kingdom census. There may be other use cases than the one I have written the template for, so I would be grateful if you or others wish to help expand it. Thanks. --Caorongjin (talk) 15:06, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah that's great, thank you . I'll take a look over the coming week or so and see what I can do. -- KenBailey (talk) 08:15, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks ! --Caorongjin (talk) 14:14, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

URL link
With the announcement by the LDS Church earlier this year that users of its free service can now access U.S. Census images either directly on their site or through Ancestry.com, it is increasingly likely that reference citations can include a URL, as in the following example:

Can you add the URL parameter to the template? — btphelps (talk to me) (what I've done) 21:11, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Formatting issue
There is a minor issue with spaces before punctuation. Here is the source:

Which produces the following:


 * United States Census, 1880; San Francisco; line 2, enumeration district 99 , Family History film 004239987 , National Archives film number T9-0075 . Retrieved on November 4, 2014

Thanks for your assistance! — btphelps (talk to me) (what I've done) 21:22, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Quote
It would be nice to add a quote parameter to quote what the census says. WilliamKF (talk) 23:15, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Source link is not displayed
@Coemgenus, for reasons that escape me, the reference displayed at the bottom of an article page for a citation like this below, containing a perfectly valid URL, doesn't work:



The reference instead displays by default a Wikilink to the United States Census page. You can see an example of this in citation #3 in Josephine Earp. This is nonsensical. The U.S. Census WP page doesn't offer any constructive information about the source. The relevant information for the citation is contained in the URL in the reference itself.

What's worse, when I change the title= parameter to reflect the actual content of the relevant linked page, as in this example:



The link to the correct reference page is now redlinked. You can see an example of this in citation #2 in Josephine Earp. I suggest modifying the default behavior to link to the URL given in the citation using the page title provided. If for any reason a URL is not provided, I suppose we could retain a default wikilink to the United States Census page, though I really don't see any benefit to this. — btphelps (talk to me) (what I've done) 21:46, 24 November 2015 (UTC)


 * It's been a while since I wrote this. If I can remember how it works, I'll see what I can do. --Coemgenus (talk) 14:37, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Title link is internal wikilink
Was the title link meant to be an internal wikilink? Because that's what it's doing right now, rather than linking to an external census record. If it is meant to be a wikilink, there should be an alternate target page field if the person shares a name with someone else. ... disco spinster   talk  20:49, 21 August 2018 (UTC)