How to install the 2012 digital edition of “Evidence Explained” on your PC

When at the 2013 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) earlier this month, I learned one of my classmates had lugged two weighty tomes to Salt Lake City: “Professional Genealogy” (aka “ProGen”) and “Evidence Explained” (EE). Both are essential reference works for the serious genealogist, but at 654-pages and 885-pages respectively, they’re not books you typically want to carry with you when traveling any great distance.

What was most surprising to me is this same person also brought along a laptop and an iPad. Although ProGen is not yet available in digital format, I questioned why she hadn’t simply purchased and installed the digital edition of Evidence Explained. (Yes, it will set you back another $29.95, but that is nothing when compared to luggage overage limits for air travel.) She responded by saying that although she had purchased the book in electronic format, she had been unable to figure out how to get the digital edition installed.

I had some trouble with that, too.

Although the Evidence Explained bookstore is quite clear that what you are getting when making your purchase is an Adobe DRM version of the eBook, somehow I simply glossed over the “DRM” portion of that description. I knew DRM means “digital rights management” and that it is a way that artists and authors, like Elizabeth Shown Mills, protect their work against piracy and copyright infringement. However, I had previously purchased the EE 2007 edition several years ago and recalled that version of the eBook was a regular PDF file format that opened in the free version of Adobe Reader. What tripped me up this time around is that when I attempted to download the EE 2012 edition, what I got was an *.acsm file, which I could not open using Adobe Reader. So, I did what anyone would have done: kept clicking. Nothing happened, or so I thought. In actuality, I exhausted my four allowable downloads of EE but was unaware of that at the time due to web page caching issues.

I researched *.acsm files and learned they are Adobe Content Server files designed to protect “PDF and reflowable EPUB eBooks for Adobe Digital Editions software and supported mobile devices”.¹ Being unfamiliar with Adobe Digital Editions (ADE), I went to the Adobe Systems website at adobe.com and learned that it, thankfully, was a free download. Ultimately, through the novel concept of actually reading the FAQ at Evidence Explained and the FAQ for ADE, I now understood the process to download and authorize the purchased file. Imagine my surprise when I learned I was out of downloads. Fortunately, the tech support rep readily understood my problem and re-enabled my download link.

I was finally successful installing EE on my laptop at home and on my iPad, which I took with me when I went to SLIG. When I learned of my classmate’s travails, I could definitely sympathize, and walked her through the process. It was a bit late to prevent her from bringing the hardback copy of EE with her to school, but perhaps these instructions will assist readers of this blog.

Here are the 5 steps to download, install and authorize the “Evidence Explained” eBook on a Windows PC or laptop:

1. Purchase the 2012 digital edition of Evidence Explained at the website’s book store by navigating to https://www.evidenceexplained.com/magento/. You will need to set up an account at the book store to complete your purchase.

Do *NOT* attempt to download the eBook just yet! If you do, you will get an URLLink.acsm file. This is essentially a license file that you cannot do anything with initially without ADE installed. It is not the eBook.

2. Set up a free Adobe ID account at Adobe.com.

3. Download the free Adobe Digital Editions software from the Adobe.com website: http://www.adobe.com/products/digital-editions/download.html. This is the software that will allow you to open DRM-protected PDF files.

ADE should be downloaded and installed to a Windows or Mac computer, not to a smartphone or tablet.

4. Once installed, authorize your copy of ADE with the Adobe ID you created in Step 2 by going to Help > Authorize Computer.

Input the e-mail address and password you set up in Step 2, and then click Authorize.

5. Go back the EE bookstore, and download your “Evidence Explained” eBook file.

Your eBook will open in Adobe Digital Editions!

Evidence Explained (Second Edition) by Elizabeth Shown Mills, as seen in the Adobe Digital Editions software.

Not only does having the digital edition of “Evidence Explained” save room and weight in my backpack when on the road, but being able to keyword search for terms is a fantastic bonus. I especially like viewing it on my iPad, but those directions will have to wait until another day.

Sources:
¹http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/content-server/pdfs/acs4-datasheet-ue.pdf : accessed 31 Jan 2013.

Post last updated 03 Feb 2013

Post-enumeration coding of 1940 census data for marital status

Like many over-eager genealogists, I was online the morning of 02 April 2012 – the first day the 1940 census was available to the public. Within a matter of days, I had located a handful of relatives on the 1940 census by first locating their enumeration districts. It wasn’t long before I began finding information in this census that I hadn’t encountered previously despite having done extensive census research in the past. For example, why was I finding the numeral “7” in the marital status column, instead of one of the more common abbreviations of marital status, such as S[ingle], M[arried], W[idowe]d or D[ivorced]?

1940 U.S. Federal census entry for Oliver Bingaman of Shoshone County, Idaho, highlighted in yellow.

I’ve highlighted column 12 in the 1940 census in red where marital status was recorded. Note those who reported they were married (M) where the M was crossed out and a 7 penciled in. As we shall see later in this piece, instructions to enumerators were only partially followed for this household. In the case of the author’s grandfather, Oliver Bingaman, highlighted in yellow above, no obvious wife was enumerated with him, and yet there was no alteration of his marital status as originally recorded.

Fortunately, I was able to track down a blog entry by Meldon J. Wolfgang III, wherein he described this very scenario and some of the backstory behind this particular census code. Read his post here.

Mr. Wolfgang’s blog entry contains a link to a very valuable resource: the IPUMS-USA website. Wolfgang explains

“IPUMS is not a genealogy site; it is the acronym for the ‘Integrated Public Use Microdata Series’ and is part of the University of Minnesota’s Population Center. Data geeks, statisticians and epidemiologists – all of whom use census data – are the primary users of this site.”

Even though genealogists per se are not the intended audience, serious genealogists will nevertheless find a wealth of information about the decennial United States Federal census on this site.

IPUMS-USA census data website – http://usa.ipums.org/usa/

To locate the procedural history that explains the post-enumeration coding done by the staff of the Census Bureau, navigate to this link: http://usa.ipums.org/usa/resources/voliii/enumproc1940.pdf

It is under the General Population Coding section that we find the explanation for the coding of marital status:

Source: Jenkins, Robert M. Procedural History of the 1940 Census of Population and Housing. (Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), p. 63

To summarize, if the enumerator left the marital status column blank, then the Census Bureau staff in Washington D.C. would attempt to complete the field based solely on other elements they read on the page. If no spouse or children were living in the household, the coder assumed the individual was single. If, however, the person had no spouse in the home and there were children present, then one of two codes was entered, either 1) widowed, if the individual was 55 or older, or 2) 7, if the person was under age 55. Even when a marital status of M[arried] was recorded, clerks were instructed to interline the M and replace it with 7 if no spouse was included in the household, thus resulting in this entry: M 7. This distinction with respect to age is important. In a nutshell, if you find a marital status of M crossed out and replaced with Wd, don’t assume the spouse is deceased; look for that individual in another household. If you find a 7 in the marital status column, or an M crossed out and a 7 penciled in, then look for the spouse in another household.

As Wolfgang pointed out in his post, the census coders had no special insight into any particular household. If something you’re seeing in the 1940 census doesn’t track with the research you’ve done on a family, or with your own personal knowledge of events, then having a better understanding of these codes may help explain any anomalies.

We have examined a bit of the history of census coding for a single column of data (marital status) in a single census year (1940). Imagine what additional information you may be able to glean from other entries if you read the relevant instructions or procedural history as well. The IPUMS-USA website is a great place to start.

***
Note: In his blog post, Meldon J. Wolfgang III referenced a talk he gave in the days leading up to the release of the 1940 census. Judy G. Russell, CG, (aka the Legal Genealogist) was in the audience and gave a brief synopsis of his talk, and an overview of the IPUMS-USA website, on her blog.

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How to install the 2012 digital edition of “Evidence Explained” on your PC

It Was a 7: One 1940 Census Code Revealed