Canada, Prairie Provinces, Census, 1926: Records report death places and single people as Separated

JulianBrown38

Some records in the "Canada, Prairie provinces, Census, 1926" collection are making stuff up.

1. They include death places. Mark Twain said something like "The report of my death was an exaggeration".
2. Whole families of single children ("S" in the image) are reported as Separated.

Here is an example for Isabella Watson (LFNP-J24) who was married in 1931 and died in 1981. The record in question is here (QPR4-G9KD). This is what the record viewer shows:

This shows the Separated status, but there is no mention of the death place there.

This is the entry in the list of results when I do a search for her within the collection:

Here, Isabella has a death place, is reported as separated, her birth is listed twice in different formats, her immigration year is listed twice, and her age is listed three times.

This is how the record show up in the source linker:

This repeats these inventions in the left column.

I am able to get the personas tool output for her. Here is a copy, unformatted courtesy of Vanilla, but you can use your browser search for find "death" or "separated" in the following:

     <ns4:fact primary="true" type="http://gedcomx.org/Death" id="44a4ab55-91e0-47b1-8bee-5936c0a2e58a">            <ns4:attribution>                <ns4:modified>2024-10-25T07:56:32.442Z</ns4:modified>                <ns4:created>2024-10-25T07:56:32.442Z</ns4:created>            </ns4:attribution>            <ns4:place confidence="http://confidence/100" description="#place_3457606" id="52675f24-93e1-4404-b24f-f9ce8ff2d25b">                <ns4:original>Macdonald Rural Municipality, Manitoba, Canada</ns4:original>                <ns4:field type="http://gedcomx.org/Place" id="f66b1ea2-f740-43ff-a709-c4544916e70e">                    <ns4:attribution>                        <ns4:modified>2024-10-25T07:56:32.442Z</ns4:modified>                        <ns4:created>2024-10-25T07:56:32.442Z</ns4:created>                    </ns4:attribution>                    <ns4:value labelId="EVENT_PLACE" resource="https://www.familysearch.org/platform/places/description/3457606" type="http://gedcomx.org/Interpreted" confidence="http://confidence/100" id="748c3a66-b1ed-4d5d-b84b-8c16d07a8e8a">                        <ns4:attribution>                            <ns4:contributor resource="http://treatment/LocalityTreatment/ver/1"/>                            <ns4:modified>2024-10-25T13:51:12.446Z</ns4:modified>                            <ns4:created>2024-10-25T13:51:12.446Z</ns4:created>                        </ns4:attribution>                        <ns4:text>Macdonald Rural Municipality, Manitoba, Canada</ns4:text>                    </ns4:value>                </ns4:field>            </ns4:place>            <ns4:field type="http://familysearch.org/types/fields/EventType" id="022f4cd1-086e-468b-8341-16255fd100e0">                <ns4:attribution>                    <ns4:modified>2024-10-25T07:56:32.442Z</ns4:modified>                    <ns4:created>2024-10-25T07:56:32.442Z</ns4:created>                </ns4:attribution>                <ns4:value labelId="EVENT_TYPE_ORIG" resource="http://gedcomx.org/Death" type="http://gedcomx.org/Original" id="93203eb2-db25-4379-812d-bd96bd46ec4a">                    <ns4:text>Death</ns4:text>                </ns4:value>            </ns4:field>        </ns4:fact> 

and

            <ns4:value>Separated</ns4:value>            <ns4:field type="http://gedcomx.org/MaritalStatus" id="bff36d72-cd63-4648-afc3-618283f3847e">                <ns4:attribution>                    <ns4:modified>2024-10-25T07:56:32.442Z</ns4:modified>                    <ns4:created>2024-10-25T07:56:32.442Z</ns4:created>                </ns4:attribution>                <ns4:value labelId="PR_MARITAL_STATUS_ORIG" type="http://gedcomx.org/Original" id="7db81eff-19bf-43af-bcc3-ab80df451484">                    <ns4:text>S</ns4:text>                </ns4:value>                <ns4:value labelId="PR_MARITAL_STATUS" resource="http://ws.cv.standards.service.prod.us-east-1.prod.fslocal.org:80/cv/terms/133946" type="http://gedcomx.org/Interpreted" id="7db81eff-19bf-43af-bcc3-ab80df451484">                    <ns4:attribution>                        <ns4:contributor resource="http://treatment/CvMaritalStatusTreatment/ver/2"/>                        <ns4:modified>2024-10-25T13:51:12.421Z</ns4:modified>                        <ns4:created>2024-10-25T13:51:12.421Z</ns4:created>                    </ns4:attribution>                    <ns4:text>Separated</ns4:text>                </ns4:value>            </ns4:field>

This behaviour may be limited to a range of indexing batches; there are many people who are reported as Single throughout the census, and most people don't have a death place. It certainly happens for the few individuals I have looked at in Isabella's census page image and the next image. Isabella's brother John is one of those affected, but the personas tool throws a wobbly when I try to look for his information.

Where do these fabrications come from?

Áine Ní Donnghaile

@SerraNola I know this isn't a place auto standardizer issue, but perhaps you can direct this issue to the right department/engineer? Thanks.

SerraNola

My team is actually concerned with any defects in records, search function, editing, missing records—anything that will inhibit research and/or corrupt the sources in Family Tree. The more these things get reported, the better we can triage the problems for the engineers and it gets to the right person more quickly.

@JulianBrown38 This is the first I've seen of this issue. Thanks for your detailed analysis and let us know if you have any additional info.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

Thank you @SerraNola for your reply. We, the users, are not often informed who is responsible for which parts of the site.