Major Indexing Errors

S. Marie Job

There are many 'Death' records that have been indexed as 'Birth' records. The only way to discover the error is if you view the actual document. There are hundreds of records I'm having to correct as users have used these records as 'Birth' sources when they are actually the Death of the individuals.

Here is one of the urls: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F4JV-TM8

Thank you!

S. Marie Job (Marie1831)

smariejob@gmail.com

CDBurk

@S. Marie Job

Hi there. I have seen that sometimes record collections will name a specific life event like a birth or a death, and when you look at the actual images, they appear to be for a different life event. Our engineers have been working diligently to correct this problem when we can replicate the problem using a well-supported browsers version and operating system.

I did go to the record you were concerned about and wondered if you noticed the citation about this collection which appears on the record details page. Here is what shows on the left in the citation field:

"Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F4JV-TM8 : 20 May 2022), John Peirce in entry for Bettee Peirce, 6 Jan 1763; citing Birth, Waltham, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America, Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, Boston; FHL microfilm 007009672.

Were you aware that Town records usually included all of the major events which would be inclusive of births, marriages and deaths? The catalog information about digital film #7009672 shows that this collection should include births, deaths and marriages:

While this can seem confusing, as you review the collection please carefully check to see if it is just about one life event or multiple life events. I went to the magnifying glass and clicked it to see if the indexed information was different than the information that I found on the actual record pages, and I did not find any that were mismatched. Even the URL you provided opened to the image of a page which included births, deaths and marriages...

Thank you for reporting your concern as we are aware of the problem you described and we wants you to report any issues that concern you so that we can investigate and resolve them. If you hav

May you be successful with your family history efforts.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

As CD Burk notes, the example URL you gave leads to the record for John Peirce as father of Bettee Peirce, born on 6 Jan 1763, and the image attached to the record indeed shows "Bettee Peirce born Jany. 6th 1763" as the first of five "Children of John & Abigail Peirce". I spot-checked several other index entries, and they all got the event correct. For example, Bettee's little brother Elisha's death on 17 Oct 1771 is indexed as a death (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FHD6-DWL).

There are unquestionably records in the FamilySearch database that are indexed as the wrong event, especially when multiple types of event are recorded on the same page, but these Massachusetts town clerk records do not appear to be among them.