How should obsolete English characters (example below) be indexed?
Sorry if some Community members think I should have posted this under the General Question category, but it somewhat connects to the thread at https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/135873/dutch-reformed-y-with-dots-over-or-ij#latest, which I have been following with great interest.
I wonder how this surname would be treated, in line with the "index what you see" approach that appears to be stressed in FamilySearch indexing projects?
Having a GREENGRASS branch in my ancestry, I would have no hesitation about the spelling (or recording) of the surname illustrated here. The last two characters in the name both represent the letter "s", the penultimate one being commonly known as a "long s". Yet, as shown at https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&q.surname=greengrafs&q.surname.exact=on there are 170 instances in FamilySearch's indexed records where the character has been indexed as an "f".
In my early days on FamilySearch, this error made me miss a lot of results for my Greengrass relatives, as it did not occur to me that this misinterpretation had taken place (obviously affecting other names, too), so I was making "Exact" searches for GREENGRASS, instead of using a wildcard in the appropriate place, as I would now.
The use of the "long s" was taking place until well into the 19th century, so I wonder if project instructions ever mention anything relevant to the issue, or are indexers expected to be aware of matters like this?
(Another example - usually in much older documents - would be the "ff" at the start of a name, which is meant to represent an "F" - not a double-f)
As I have mentioned, I have purposefully placed this question here, as I feel it ties in closely with the suggestions / debate, on how to record unfamiliar characters, at the referenced topic found via the link above.
Answers
-
We type the spelling of names as spelled on the document, and in this case the long 's' is an old script 's', not an 'f' and should be indexed as an 's'. Newer indexers unfamiliar with the old script (me included when I first started indexing years ago) aren't familiar with the old script so the letters aren't indexed as what they actually are. Family Search gives handwriting help to help us understand the writing. https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/help/handwriting#!/lang=en&title=Alphabet%20(Secretary%20Hand)
2 -
@Paul W As a Burgess descendant, I feel your pain. Whenever a new record set in my area of research appears on that other genealogy website, one of the first things I do is run a search on "Burgep." Over the years I've made many corrections from Burgep, written with a long s, to Burgess.
3 -
Ah, paleography... I've sometimes wished that indexers would be required to pass a quiz on it before being allowed near pre-20th-century records. Long 's' would be the first thing covered.
4 -
Thank you for your responses. I imagined others would be able to relate to this problem! However, I was rather surprised to discover those 170 instances where the long s had been read as an f. Not necessarily 170 different indexers involved, of course, but still worrying that when indexers copy "what they see" they are managing to produce so many mistakes. Also, that these errors are getting past the review stage of the process, too. But (as Julia would say) I still managed to find the records (eventually), so shouldn't be too critical of the indexers, or the general process.
2 -
@Paul W just think what it will be like in years to come as many children attend schools that do not teach reading or writing but do teach that no punctuation is needed either!😎
0
