Questionable data in NARA microfilm publication M327
Hello,
I found data discrepancies between the ship and arrival date for one of my great-grandmothers and her family in 2 different sources on FamilySearch.org, and I am wondering:
- Is there is anything that I can do on familysearch.org to tag certain images for having questionable/conflicting information? (Actually, a better question might be: Is there anything I can do other that what I have already done, which is edit a source that I have linked to a family member by correcting typos and adding text to the "Describe the Record (Notes)" field?)
- Is there anything I could (or should) do, such as contact whoever created or owns the source to let them know about potential errors in their data? (I ask this not because I think that I found errors about 4 individuals in a source. See the end of this post for why I am actually asking this question.)
The problem is not that the images were indexed or transcribed incorrectly; that is a separate issue that is easy to address on familysearch.org.
The problem is that the images of what I consider to be a primary source (images of original ship manifests) conflict with images of another source (the cards that look like index cards in the source Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists Index, 1820-1897).
Specifically, if you review the image from source A below, you'll see that the image that lists Gesine v Hagel is on image 651 of 676. The images of individual pages in this source don't show the ship information, however, image 651 falls between the first and last images of the manifest for the SS Weser (arrival date 5/24/1889), which starts on image 635 and ends on 655.
The ship manifest that is on the film after the Weser, which starts on image 656 of 676 of the microfilm, is for the SS Rhein, which had an arrival date of May 30, 1889.
If you review source B below, the index card does not show a Ship Name of Weser and a Date of May 30, 1889 for Gesine Hagel, to match the ship manifest. Instead, it shows the Ship Name and Date from the ship manifest that is on the (source A) microfilm after the Weser, which is the Rhein.
SOURCE A: "Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1948," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK6L-N53Y : 19 February 2021), Gesine Hagel, ; citing Immigration, Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, NARA microfilm publications M255, M596, and T844 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL film 417,427.
SOURCE B: Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists Index, 1820-1897, database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV9F-CG1V : 16 March 2018), Gesine Hagel, 1889; citing NARA microfilm publication M327 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 417,261.
CONCLUSION:
The reason I asked question # 2 above is this: If someone made a mistake (in source B) about 4 people (who are listed on 2 different pages of the manifest for the Weser in source A), how many other similar mistakes might be present in source B? For example, what if everyone who is listed on the 2 pages that my relatives are listed on in source A also have a different/conflicting ship and arrival date info listed in source B?
Sorry, this has gotten really long... I hope that I am making sense, but it is getting late.
Thank you in advance to anyone who made it to the end of my message and to anyone who replies. :-)
Amy J.
Answers
-
If the card catalog disagrees with the book, which one do you believe?
The collection "Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists Index" looks like index cards because it is index cards. I don't know when they were created or by whom, but it appears that they got the ship identifications wrong at least some of the time, probably because of the bad condition of the records and their lack of labeling on anything but the first page. Luckily, the film crew for the "Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1948" collection did a better job than the index-card creators: the pages for the Weser clearly belong together, as do the pages for the Rhein. (They have different styles of page numbering added later: the Weser's manifest has "page N", while the Rhein has a circled number, repeated on each separate or nearly-separate piece of the page.)
As for what the existence of such errors in the index cards means: it reinforces the importance of not trusting indexes. They're useful, and better than nothing, but they should not be treated as the data. Indexes are merely pointers to the data. For example, the index card for Gesine (or whatever her name actually is) is enough to tell you to look for her arrival in Baltimore, not Philadelphia or New York, but said index card should not be treated as adequate documentation for anything, really.
0 -
You have done a good job of exposing the error made when compiling the index. I would add this explanation to the sources attached to individuals in your tree so that others are not confused. The original manifest is a record. It is a primary or direct (I cannot remember which is the correct word) source as it was created at the time of the event. And the index is a record. But it is a secondary or indirect source as it was created later after the actual event. Errors are part of the genealogical landscape in my view. It is our job to explain them as we review the whole picture.
0
