Correcting indexed records
You have recently indexed the microfilms from the Lisia Góra Parish in Tarnów, Poland. I have worked on the non-indexed microfilms for almost 10 years to build my family tree. They were available at an FHC near me. Both my maternal grandparents are from that parish. I am very familiar with the names of persons in that parish and the Latin and Polish spellings of names. While your index is great (thank you, thank you, thank you), I have found many transcription errors. I would like to offer edits/corrections to those entries but the "edit" button is greyed out. Is there a way I can volunteer to correct the indexing or add my suggested edits to the indexed information? I am referring to this set of records: https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/740710
Answers
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@MALG22030 It looks like there are currently no indexing projects for Poland. Check out this page for Poland. It has learning videos for researching that may or not help.
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This is what Chatbot came up for correcting indexing errors.
To fix indexing errors on FamilySearch, follow these steps:
- Determine Editability:
- From the record details page, click the icon that looks like a sheet of lined paper.
- At the top of the record details page, click "Edit".
- If the "Edit" button is grayed out, the index is not editable. If you can partially edit the data, a pop-up box with buttons for edits will appear. If you can fully edit the data, a new screen will show with the record image on the left and a transcription panel on the right.
- Editing from Historical Images:
- If you clicked "Search" and then "Images", click to view the images on an Image Group Number.
- Click to enlarge the image that has a mistake. You will see the record image to the left and a panel with information about the image and the image group to the right.
- Using the New Edit Feature:
- With the newest update on FamilySearch, you can make corrections to names in the index. This helps other researchers locate records and ancestors they might not have been able to find otherwise.
- The purpose of editing an index is to enable other researchers to find their ancestors more effectively.
- Browser Considerations:
- Ensure you are using a supported browser. FamilySearch favors Chrome, but all major browsers are supported.
- Closing and reopening your browser usually updates it. For Chrome, click the three vertical dots in the top right corner, select "Help", and choose "About Google Chrome". For Firefox, click on "Firefox" in the menu bar and choose "About Firefox". Follow the prompts to update your browser if necessary.
0 - Determine Editability:
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@MALG22030 Thank you for your generous offer to help with editing transcription errors on these films. At the present time it is not possible to edit films when the image is not available, which is why the edit button is grayed out. This is true even though you can view them at a FamilySearch center. I know its a bit frustrating not to be able to correct something that is wrong, but it's also important for other researchers to be able to see the document and verify why a change was made.
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I think there is a more fundamental problem of methodology here. All transcriptions are liable to error, this is the problem of humans, we make mistakes. In addition some transcriptions have policies applied to them, such as concealing the place of the event recorded.
The question then is what should the researcher do about this? The only answer I can think of is that we should check the transcription against a copy of the original document to see that the data presented is correct and complete. This requires that a copy of the original is available.
For my money no data providing organisation has a firm policy to also provide copies of the original documents. They should. Some data providing organisations are better than others in providing copies of originals.
When is FamilySearch going to (a) make a policy statement that their objective is to provide originals for all transcriptions and (b) to provide a running percentage of the transcripts that do have the originals supplied and easily obtainable to do this checking?
Within the last year I made a visit to the nearest LDS centre at the advertised time of opening. I found it to be closed with no sign at the entrance of when it would re-open. My suspicion is that this applies to many of the centres where we are told that we can access the originals.
Does the methodology need a review?
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In my view this will become even more of a concern as AI takes over indexing, because AI will work on far more images than any individual ever will, so that misinterpretations of particular recurrent image features have the potential to spread far more widely (see placename standardisation for another example of this sort of thing).
In my view there is another key problem, which is that the index editing functionality needs to be much better aligned to the detailed metadata structure (both personas and relationships) of the specific collection (plus, this structure, and how it maps to any external metadata source and to the Record display, need to be properly documented for us).
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@Tim F Powys-Lybbe Like you I am uncomfortable when I see a person added to a family tree sourced with only transcriptions and no access to the original documents. The general policy for organizations like Family Search when both cannot be offered is to at least make the transcription available in the hope that it will be the starting point for further research. Perhaps there should be warnings on every collection without images such as the one for Legacy Collections:
I will say unequivocally that the intent of FamilySearch is to provide as much access as they possibly can to original documents. There is an ongoing effort to link images to Legacy Collections (extracted births marriages and deaths) and others as far as contracts will allow.
I also can acknowledge the concern over reports of FS Centers being closed during advertised operating hours. It is likely due to the huge drop off in patrons now that so much is online. Staff for some centers are rarely seeing anyone come in, which should NOT be an excuse to close up early but I fear it is. It's a problem that is getting attention so perhaps there will be improvement.
@MandyShaw1 AI will indeed play the starring role for future indexing even with its many flaws. To make these collections searchable it is critically important IMO, to have editing tools that are not only reliable, but easier for users to navigate. Index editing functionality aligned to specific collections is not just a good suggestion, but essential in light of recent problems. On that subject, I'm happy to say that there has been some positive movement—yesterday I was able to create new family groups without losing permissions.
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