Genders are switched for multiple marriage records
There appears to be a systemic problem with indexed records showing the wrong gender. I have come across hundreds of examples (in England). See one of them below:
Cite This Record
"England, Yorkshire, Parish Registers, 1538-2016", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:66GG-JZVM : 11 August 2022), Kate Annie Betts, 1910.
England, Yorkshire, Parish Registers, 1538-2016
Kate Anne Betts (Head)
1885-Deceased
L5GF-V5C
Joseph Frederick Cadman (Wife)
1883 -
Marriage
27 Mar 1910
Wicker, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom
L5ZG-MHV
Best Answer
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Is it possible for you, or another of the moderators, to escalate this issue to the team that would handle such issues?
It appears to be a post-indexing problem, affecting at least two different collections of Yorkshire marriage records - some held at the Borthwick Institute, others at the North Yorkshire County Record Office. There must be several thousands of these (probably relating to the entire collections), whereby the sex of male / female has been applied the wrong way around.
It will really look bad for FamilySearch if nobody bothers to create what should be a straightforward process to put this matter right.
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Answers
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Hello Everyone
I'm not sure if I have desribed my problem correctly in my subject so hopefully my desription of the problem is better! I'm coming across marriage records for my ancestors where the parties have been allocated the wrong gender. For example I have one record where the groom's and bride's names are Isaac and Grace. Now, if I'm not wrong here - that means Isaac is the husband and Grace is the wife (unless someone has named their daughter Isaac and someone has named their son Grace - which I trhink is highly unlikely). Yet the record describes Isaac as female and calls him the "wife". Same for Clara - she's the male and the husband.
Here's the citation for the record:-
"England, Yorkshire, Bishop's Transcripts, 1547-1957", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:68ZH-SJYW : 4 August 2022), Isaac Revil in entry for Grace Cliffe, 1752.
I can't edit it - the Edit button doesn't work. I have not viewed the record to see what has happened because Find My Past has the record and I don't want to pay.
It's not the first time I've encountered this problem in a marriage record. How can I get it fixed?
Regards
Lynda
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1 - When the image is not on the FamilySearch website, an edit is not possible. Only records with images have an edit function.
2 - That image is on FindMyPast, and the index is courtesy of FindMyPast. Both the image and the index on FMP show the male name in the customary first position with the female name in the customary second position in the record. https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/4319956
https://www.findmypast.com/transcript?id=GBPRS/YORKSHIRE/MAR/200895924/1
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Thank you for your reply Ainne. So if I approach FindMy Past - do you think they can fix it?
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It's not incorrect on FindMyPast. There is a button to submit a correction on the FMP record, but there is no error on FMP.
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Okay - so if it is correct on FMP why does it show incorrectly on Family Search?
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I, too, am finding this problem recently, as I have been examining / attaching these sources to my Yorkshire relatives. As FamilySearch has been adding multiple sources for the same events, I am finding some of these sources (probably the ones relating to the actual parish register indexing) do have the sex the right way around, but others (possibly all Bishop's Transcripts related - I haven't checked closely) are reversing this for the male and female .
As far as FamilySearch addressing this issue, I'm not so sure if they will If there is a metadata issue involved, they do sometimes make a change, but I can't see any adjustments being likely if only some of the marriage sources are affected.
This is the best place to request this, however, and for a moderator to then pass such a request to the FamilySearch team that would handle these issues.
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Update to the above. Excellent - I've just found a good example! It appears this might relate to a PR - rather than BT - collection, but regardless, clearly shows what you are referring to:
And here's another...
The latter does appear to be from the Bishop's Transcripts collection held at the Borthwick Institute in York.
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Hi Paul
Glad I'm not the only one having this problem. I think all the records I've seen so far are held at the Borthwick Institute in York and part of the Bishops' Transcripts. I cannot recall seeing any records that are correct in terms of the right gender allocated to the right person. So if Find My Past is transcribing correctly - as Aine says "It's not incorrect on FindMyPast" - all I can think is something is going wrong when Family Search receives the record.
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Thanks Paul! Let's hope we get it resolved as I really don't want to attach sources to my records that have errors in them.
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I have merged both of these examples and I will pass this on to be reviewed. Thanks for letting us know.
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Thanks Maille. Hopefully it will be an easy fix.
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@Enigmatic The case with Isaac Revil and Grace Cliffe: this record has an image and is capable of being edited right now. I switched Isaac and Grace by opening Isaac's record and editing both names, placing his as the first name attached to the male gender and adding hers as the spouse. I know this is a lot of work but it is doable.
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@jasonvramsay1 Looking at Kate Betts: Typically when I have seen English marriage records, I see one record for the husband and the wife is named as his spouse.
In this record, four entries were made, one for each man. Frederick's record then contains info about Jane but her record says she showed up in his record.
In your example, only two marriages were recorded but four entries were created. It appears that two separate marriage records were made for the one event. Having indexed these in the past, I could guess that the form set up was: man's name, sex, age, residence, etc and then the spouse info would be automatically female. By indexing it twice, Kate is shown as the male and John as the female.
I see the options as: ignoring the second record; attaching it and adding a note about being indexed incorrectly; or editing the indexed info to swap the husband and wife position.
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@Maile L I too have an example of wrong genders in a marriage index. Mary Jane Wainwright, "England, Yorkshire, Parish Registers, 1538-2016" • FamilySearch
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@JoanneMontgomery A stated in the comment above' "I see the options as: ignoring the second record; attaching it and adding a note about being indexed incorrectly; or editing the indexed info to swap the husband and wife position."
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