Why will FamilySearch not correct metadata errors in its England & Wales Probate Collection?
The problems with the "England and Wales, National Index of Wills and Administrations, 1858-1957" collection have been advised here over a period of many years, but still there appears no interest in correcting false details, as illustrated in the example below. I believe this matter has been escalated in the past, but continuing to have such detail on its website should really be totally unacceptable to FamilySearch management. Would a moderator kindly attempt to provide some response as to why these relatively simple items (not calling "Beneficiaries" as such and stopping the word "Calendar" being turned into a placename in Idaho) cannot be addressed.
Here is an example of the FamilySearch version of the record, followed by the original record on which it is meant to be based:
As can be clearly seen, the "Beneficiaries" are actually "Administrators" and, somehow, the Event Place (Original) of "Cheshire" has been transformed to an Event Place of "Calendar, Idaho, Idaho, United States". As these errors are perpetuated throughout the entire collection, surely this matter now requires urgent attention.
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@Paul W You are correct that it is a metadata error and I have also always thought it probably stemmed from the name of this collection being "Probate Calendar". I long ago isolated the error to eleven films and I will see what I can do to move it up the queue.
As for the "Beneficiary" issue, I was successful in convincing engineers to remove this. I just checked and there was action on this two days ago. It appears they will change the label to just "Others" as it would be way more complicated to sort out the administrators.
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Not to offer an excuse, and I'm certainly not a moderator, but the two issues are separate and will need separate correction processes.
The place name auto standardizer is at fault for moving the record to Calendar, Idaho. I've even seen a person's name turned into a place in another record set. @SerraNola is working to identify these place errors from our reports, but that issue is widespread and will take a long time to correct.
If I recall correctly, the Beneficiaries error has always been present on this record set and shows on every record in the set. It should be a relatively easy fix but apparently has a low priority.
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I'm afraid I will have to disagree with you on this occasion, Áine. There seems no way that "Cheshire" could become "Calendar" due to the auto-standardisation exercise, so I think it's a case of "(Probate) Calendar" - which must have appeared as a title / sub-title in the indexed record collection - being used instead of Cheshire when the Event Place field was added.
As has been suggested previously, the whole collection needs to be amended to reflect the facts. If necessary, the Event Place or Event Place (original) fields can be completely removed. As is frequently pointed out by a fellow Community member, an indexed item does not have to be a transcription, especially when the finer detail can be easily found in the original documents - in this case, at https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/search-results
Obviously, FamilySearch is not alone in being a (genealogy based) website that contains collections with metadata errors. The difference is that, once reported, I have found nearly all (from FreeBMD to Find My Past) are very quick to remedy these errors. It once took just a few days for the FS engineers to amend every incorrect reference that appeared when its England and Wales Birth Registration collection was put online. So, (especially when it's just a case of one or two fields being amended in exactly the same way for every item in the collection), it has been proved such a correction exercise should take only a very limited amount of time.
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Sorry if I wasn't clear in my comments, Paul.
I wasn't suggesting that Cheshire became Calendar. That's why I mentioned that, in another record set, I saw a person's name become the place. The auto standardizer does not seem to choose from a place field to create a place. It seems to indiscriminately pick a word from the page to create a place.
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Thank you so much for the attention you have given to this issue and what appears to be a positive outcome regarding at least one of the points raised. I am very pleased to hear of the replacement of the "Beneficiary" term and consider "Others" will be quite suitable, as sometimes these people will be Administrators - if there was no will - and sometimes Executors, if there was. As the FamilySearch records do not differentiate between Administrations and Wills, it would be impossible to determine the correct term, hence "Other(s)" being the best option. Hopefully, the placename issue can also be resolved, in time.
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Thank you for clarifying yours comments, which make complete sense when considering not only this collection, but others where the Event Place ends up bearing no connection at all with the Event Place (Original).
AI (or whatever one would label the tool used in the auto-standardisation procedure) certainly needs a lot of human tweaking to make it fully fit for purpose!
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