Report: a proportion of records in a film was assigned bad dates. Prevention and fixes...

JuanZuluaga3

[Edited on 10/03.]

Film 005263680 contains 2̶2̶4̶1̶ 1494 christening records from a Colombia (Valle del Cauca) parish, 1935 to 1938.

[Added: 1494=2241 - 747 ; I realized that sequential numbers for baptism events on that volume start at 748. This also means that most recorded events do have assigned dates -- there are no large portions of missing records. ]

(https://www.familysearch.org/search/film/005263680?cat=1483998)

If we run a couple of reports on the range of birth dates, we get

[Added:

1) Perhaps these numbers should not add to more than 1494, but this is a relatively minor concern.

2) A volume of Baptisms from 1935 to 1938, why would it contain births from before 1920? (Catholic baptism of grown-ups was very rare at that time and place). Why would it contain births from after 1939?

[deleted....]

For some errors, perhaps the computer recognizer, at some point, treated the sequence number written by the parish as the event date.

[added: for instance, these supposedly born in the 1600s: https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?q.filmNumber=5263680&c.birthLikeDate1=on&f.birthLikeDate0=1600

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:68FJ-SFRB ]

I do not know how to recall records that have birthyear="", to track the cause.

Fortunately, it should be easy to

• prevent this from happening, by focusing the OCR to scan only a very specific area of the image,
• running a report at the end of each OCR, to see if dates and places make sense.
• correct the mistake by recalling and rewriting those with a regular expression.

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I see similar problems in other films, like https://www.familysearch.org/search/film/004442413?cat=2015238

In this example, the OCR discovers the word "Castrillón", but instead of seeing it as a lastname, the software interprets it as the birth place, associating it with a town in Spain. The software is overreaching, reading where it should not, and making unfounded associations.

genthusiast

@JuanZuluaga3

I find your report interesting and do not claim to understand it completely.

When I click the link you post: ( https://www.familysearch.org/search/film/005263680?cat=1483998 )

I see a film of 506 images for which if I click the 'Colombia, Catholic Church Records, 1576-2018' drop-down results in waypoints: Valle del Cauca> Buga> Santa Bárbara> Bautismos 1935-1938 

If I select Buga I see other churches that are in the parish. I assume they would also have records from 1935 to 1938. So I am a little unclear about whether your question is limited to these 506 images or whether you have already included the ~75 towns in Valle de Cauca?

I am just trying to understand what you have already included and where you get the figures for wrong birth year, etc.?

JuanZuluaga3

Hi Genthusiast,

My initial report was just about that "Bautismos 1935-1938" tome from Santa Barbara parish, with 506 scanned pages. Film number 5263680 comes just from that tome. There are no other parishes with data in that film. [added: except if records about later marriages of those who were baptized, but I understand those are not usually recorded] . Other places of christening are probably wrong.

The count of 2241 baptism events comes from looking at finding the last sequential number in the 506th page: 2241 [added: and subtracting from it the sequential number on the first record - 1, 748-1=747]; on the average, [added: 1494/504 ~ 3 ] 4.5 events recorded per page.

I got tables like this one

by doing a search on records that come from that film #5263680:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?q.filmNumber=5263680

Search produces 12442 results; I interpret this assuming they are one for every person mentioned in all the 2241 1494 baptism events. Since only the "principal" person in the event (the person being baptized) has a recorded birth date or christening date, the sum should approximate 2241 1494.

Let us see at some of the 23 records that are produced with a 1800s range:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?q.filmNumber=5263680&c.birthLikeDate1=on&f.birthLikeDate0=1800

The 1st one that shows up, "Colombia, registros parroquiales y diocesanos, 1576-2018", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:68FJ-M6KW : 1 September 2021), Pojos Mariauna, octubre de 1857 : This birth year is clearly wrong.