Show Correct Information in Record Extract
I acknowledge that indexing is meant as a finding aid.
BUT - when fields that do not exist in the original record are populated in the index, that can defeat the purpose.
An example - early NYC death records rarely include the names of parents. There usually is no field for the names of parents to be listed. There is a field for the place of birth of each parent. The index now shows the names of both parents as "Unknown." That is inaccurate and misleading.
For example, the death record of young Elizabeth Ertel, daughter of Frank Ertel and Mary Ann Haggerty: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:2:9973-18RJ
I'm looking at the complete death certificate for Elizabeth as I write this post.
Why add something that is NOT there and is neither accurate nor helpful?
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Yes, I hate it when completely incorrect information has been indexed from the original record.
A totally different example, but there are a number of cases where the parish (from whose record the detail has been extracted) has been indexed as the place of residence in every instance. I went through the original registers and found the (different) family's place of residence was often many miles from the parish itself. I'd sooner the Residence fields have been left blank than to fill them with misleading and incorrect information.
I wonder if this is directly related to the indexing, or (more likely) some post-indexing mix-up. Like with my old favourite example of indexing a baptism / christening. They are treated as the exact same thing during the actual indexing work an experienced indexer told me, so, in that case definitely something is done to the records in between completion of indexing and getting them online. I feel the same is probably the case here.
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Yes, @Paul W. And part of my annoyance comes with the "Unfinished Attachments." I have the parents documented and attached, but I am persistently reminded that I have not connected "unknown" to those parents.
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The provision of this type of incorrect information which I would classify as FRAUDULENT information in the following example, has been going on for years and FamilySearch has never done anything to correct it (as far as I am aware)
I refer specifically to databases introduced with the FamilySearch website in April 2010 for India baptisms, marriages and burials. Some of the records contain the description Race: White. This is a complete fabrication as the records on which the records are based do not contain a classification for race.
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