Incorrect transcription age
Comments
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I have come across an incorrect transcription re the age of Elisabeth Gibbs, baptised on the 4th December, 1808, Bristol, to parents John and Hannah Gibbs, of Mead Street. The transcript has interpreted her age as 7 [years] when the film says 7 w, i.e. 7 weeks, and someone has automatically decided that she was born in 1801. Her monumental inscription has her birth date as 16th October 1808 which ties in with seven weeks prior to her Baptism.
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It appears you're looking at source record
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N14L-S5P
Second item in search results
FindAGrave link not in "Edit" mode
I don't see where Elizabeth has been added to the tree. When you do so, you can override the dates suggested by the transcription of the source.
For some sources, you can "Edit" the transcription, but that doesn't appear to be an option for this source.
@Ashlee C. , is there a different way to report errors for sources where the "Edit" option is grayed out?
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@davidleelambert, when pasting a link here in Community, make sure to always wait out the mangler and then press the first button on the popup menu ("Display as Text"): https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N14L-S5P. This will prevent the algorithm from turning the colons and some other characters into hex-code gibberish that neither human nor browser can use. (This doesn't apply to links to Community threads; those get made into embedded full quotes no matter what, unless you paste them in as obfuscated links, by selecting some non-link text and using the "Format as Link" button.)
@Fiona Gray, as David mentioned, only some fields of some indexes on FamilySearch are editable. One necessary (but not sufficient) condition is the availability on FS of the image to go with the index, which is not the case here — since English parish registers are now largely paywalled on commercial sites, they are FSC-only on FamilySearch. Presumably, you could try to edit the entry if you were at an FSC, but there are no guarantees that it'd work: the tool and process are highly buggy and unpredictable, and in any case, the estimated birth year would be unchanged — it's a calculated field, not an indexed one, so it's never editable, and the calculation algorithm cannot be re-run based on the new input.
I suggest a change in vocabulary to emphasize the intended purpose: it's an index, not a transcription. The one and only purpose of an index is (or should be) to help you find a document. It is not, and should ideally never be used as, a substitute for looking at the actual document (or an image thereof). Indexes are by their very nature always incomplete, and the vagaries of handwriting interpretation mean that they're also almost invariably error-ridden. (No matter the hand, handwriting is only readable if you know what it says. If you need proof of this fact, try reading even the neatest handwriting in a foreign language.)
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I suspect this index is another victim of the issue that recently has modified the age of infants under 1 year to age 0 days. Perhaps another algorithm needs retraining.
Looking at the same record on FindMyPast, which cites Index © IRI. Used by permission of FamilySearch Intl, the age was indexed as 7w for 7 weeks.
First name(s)
Elisabeth
Last name
Gibbs
Sex
Female
Baptism age
7w
Baptism year
1808
Baptism date
04 Dec 1808
Residence
Bristol, Gloucester, England
Place
Bristol
County
Gloucestershire
Country
England
Father's first name(s)
John
Father's last name
Gibbs
Mother's first name(s)
Hannah
Record set
England Births & Baptisms 1538-1975
Category
Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records
Subcategory
Parish Baptisms
Collections from
England, Great Britain
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