Requesting reindexing when place name attached incorrectly?
Hello,
I've been noticing a lot of 1901 Canadian census records for residents of Peel County, Ontario, Canada are attached to Peel Township, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada.
This is an example:
I don't think this misindexing was the case, even a few months ago, so it might be that something was tripped by a change in the standardized place names.
I know that I can manually submit a replacement location to that particular record, but a mass update is probably justified. I feel that probably a large percentage of people don't open up the actual image, and might trust the transcription as accurate.
Is there a form I can submit this request?
Thanks,
Nick
Answers
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@SerraNola This sounds like the place autostandardizer again. Thanks.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KHG9-GRH
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As the place autostandardizer is messing up records constantly, that were fine before, are we to submit examples every time we find them, as in, every time I log in and do any work on Ontario Canada families?
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@Lori9999 @NickMoreau We are aware of place name problems with censuses of Canada. The 1901 Census was repaired in August and mostly fixed, but either some errors were missed or new ones have emerged. The census was taken by district and many of the district names do not match a standardized place name. Peel District/County is a good example of how the name of the district was auto-standardized to Peel Township in a different county. Engineers know the algorithm is flawed, but how to fix it takes time. The same type of problem has affected many other collections and we are working to identify those that are hardest hit. Thank you for reporting!
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hmmmm. Interesting. Every census I just looked at in Huron County is still incorrect for 1901.
It may return in a search for Huron, Ontario, Canada, but anyone not familar with the incorrect data showing would perhaps attach record which will attach the incorrect location (Lambton County) or might not consider it a match as incorrect location. What constitutes a “fixed” record? And if 1901 “mostly fixed”, should I be submitting every time I find one that is not corrected back to correct location? It makes it very difficult to use Family Search, as most wouldn’t know they need to check original source for correct location and when attaching to change location from the one that wants to attach.
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@Lori9999 I get your frustration. I am feeling it myself as I know that inexperienced researchers are likely taking what they see on the "new and incorrect" index to be a true source.
When the 1901 Canada census was submitted for place error treatment it had thousands of residents in the Unorganized territory showing in search results as Montana and hundreds of thousands from the provinces coming up as British Colonial America. So it seemed to be "mostly fixed" after the rework. Clearly, the errors made with auto-standardizing when there is no standardized match was "not fixed" and possibly made worse. In your example above, "Point Edward" was formerly known as "Huron" so the computer attempted to match it with "Huron East", the originally indexed name.
In answer to your question of what to report going forward, I believe I have an understanding of the scope of this problem and can relay it to engineers. If anything new pops up outside of this category then yes, please continue to report.
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