The census report spelled my great-grandmother's name wrong
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K4W8-B9V?from=lynx1UIV8&treeref=LZ23-MX6&cid=fs_copy
Her name is Leila, not Lila.
It looks to me like Lila's record is connected to Leila's but doesn't show them as the same person. Can this be fixed? If yes, how?
Thanks!
Best Answers
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Hi Piper,
Thank you for asking your question here in the Community.
Editing vital information is quite easy in FamilySearch. Here is a knowledge article link that will give you the steps to take.
Let us know if you still have questions. We are always happy to help.
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@Piper Wilson, first: don't stress over name spellings. Until very recently, it was really only the sound of a name that mattered. In U.S. records, this is most apparent in censuses, because that data was collected orally. While most enumerators did a decent job of paying attention to how people wanted things spelled, there were always subconscious assumptions, such as "/lie-lah/ is spelled Lila" or "/kæth-rin/ is spelled Kathryn". As the mod's link explains, you can edit Katherine's name on her profile details page. You can't change what the census enumerator wrote for Leila over a century ago, as that would involve time travel, but you don't need to: the record has been found and attached to her profile, as it should be.
Second, I'm not sure what you mean by "doesn't show them as the same person", but I think maybe you're a bit confused by the vast and varied jungle that is FamilySearch. Apologies if the following is not at all what you're looking for.
As you can see from the menus across the top of a FamilySearch page, there are many different sections of the site. There are various sorts of possible connections between the parts, which often just serve to confuse people even more.
One major division is between this Community and the rest of FamilySearch. The Community has a different menu bar across the top, and is only connected to everything else via the logo-and-name at the top left. In the other direction, there are multiple ways to get here; the most reliably available one is to click the question mark at the top right and choose "Community" near the bottom of the drop-down.
The main FS site has Family Tree; historical records; user-submitted photos and records in Memories; Indexing; various forms of fluff in Activities; the places database; and some other bits and pieces (such as user-submitted genealogy files in Genealogies).
Family Tree is FS's open-edit communal "one world tree", where anyone can edit nearly anything, after signing in. In the tree, you can attach source citations in various ways, and some of those ways result in a two-way connection between records and profiles on the tree.
Most historical records on FamilySearch fall into one of two broad categories: those that are indexed, and those that are only available as browsable images. "Indexed" means that volunteers have looked at the image and entered key data from it into a database. Search - Records (with its horrible new interface) searches in this database. The database is person-centric: each person indexed from a record has a unique identifier leading to that person's index detail page (such as Leila in the 1900 census: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MML3-JJZ). The index detail page can be connected to other index records (such as Leila's parents and sister in the 1900 census), as well as to a profile in Family Tree.
Records that are not indexed cannot be searched by name, because computers can't (yet) read handwriting and have quite a bit of trouble reading type or print. Many such records can, however, be paged through, image by image, and those images can be connected to profiles in Family Tree. Unlike the index-entry-to-profile connection, the image-to-profile one is one-way: looking at an unindexed image, there is no way to get FS to tell you what profiles it has been attached to.
I hope this helps clarify things for you a little. If you're still confused, please ask!
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@PiperWilson, only the middle one of those three links is to her profile on Family Tree. The two "familysearch.org/ark" links are to indexes of historical records, namely the 1900 and 1920 censuses. Of those, the former is already attached as a source to Leila's profile:
The 1920 census entry has not yet been attached. You can add it to her profile by clicking the button on the index detail page:
If she's not in your history list when Source Linker comes up, you can simply find her Tree profile by ID, which is a seven-digit hyphenated alphanumeric code (LZ23-MX6). You can copy it from her profile:
You can explore her Tree profile by using the links (tabs) in the gray stripe. Details is the main page, where you can edit her vitals, other information, and family members. The Time Line includes a map, and it can help with making sure that correct standards have been associated with the entries on the Details page. The Sources tab is what you've linked to, and it shows everything that has been cited as a source for her (so far). The Collaborate tab is where you can add Notes or Discussions about the profile, useful in case there are unresolved questions. Memories is where people can add photographs or other media and associate them with profiles.
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Answers
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Connected to this, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GSLJ-WL8, my grandmother's name is spelled Katherine, not Kathryn.
I'm completely new to this. Please explain this to me as if I were five. 🤩
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@MDRMT and @Julia Szent-Györgyi - Thank you for your answers! Not only did you address my question, but you provided information I hadn't realized I needed! ♥️
I'm going to spend time digesting your answers and I'll be back if/when I think of something I need to be clarified.
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These are all supposed to be Leila
- https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MCMT-BFN
- https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/LZ23-MX6
- https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MML3-JJZ
If I understand correctly, these are three separate entries on the family tree, but they are all the same person. Is there anything to be done? Should there be anything done?
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As long as the source is attached to the correct family, don't worry about it. If you decide you need to do something, you can enter "Lila Jones" , or "Lillie Jones" as an alternate name, and add a note that says where the name is seen. The article link below explains:
https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-to-enter-names-in-family-tree
Hope this information is helpful.
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