Records indexed with date range as the year - can this metadata problem be addressed?
As illustrated in this example, I am encountering many records like this, which - when returning later to the individual's Sources section - give a very confusing picture. The record set obviously covers the 1864-1887 period but the date being picked up for entry in the Date field is the first year of that period. As can be seen, the marriage actually took place in 1884, but superficially there appear to be two events being referred to here - one in 1864, the other in 1884.
Okay, I know the date is easy to edit, but other users won't know, or bother to do that. Is there any way of fixing whole record sets (I've found more than one like this recently) that have dates in this format? Unfortunately, it appears possible this particular collection has been passed across in this manner by the (Lancashire Records Office) record custodian.
(Note - I'm not bothering to complain about Alice's first name(s) being recorded as "Spinster Alice" in the other collection!)
Answers
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Here is another example of a similar record, as it appears when making the initial search:
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Since this issue impacts searchability, perhaps @SerraNola may have some insight?
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Just as an aside - there is an image here, so why can't we edit the index record? (When I say "we", I mean "not me" - I hear too many horror stories to dare to amend indexes, especially when it looks a bit odd).
One possible reason for index editting being unavailable is that the index has come from some other organisation - such as Ancestry or FindMyPast, but there is no acknowledgement of anyone else in this case, so I do wonder whether the inability to edit is a symptom of something????
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As far as this individual record goes, I thought I'd give it a try. As you can see, in spite of the image appearing "…Courtesy of Lancashire Record Office" (second screenshot) I have been able to edit it: the underlying actual date (16 July 1896) was hidden there all along, as you can see what appeared when I clicked on the "from 1887 to 1900" (first screenshot).
The final screenshot shows the edited date has "stuck", apparently without producing any problems.
However, my main point is the one of this being a metadata problem, so regardless of the ability to edit individual records / sources (as there is an attached image), I would like to see a way of replacing the "from… to…" Event Date with the actual date - as is found / displayed in most FamilySearch records. The dates are clearly there (albeit hidden, at present) so why can't they be shown for each item, instead of how it is currently being presented (for the period covered by the whole collection)?
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@Paul W - oh! Confused I am. I presumed that it was impossible to edit Harry's marriage index because the Edit button in your screen shot appeared to be greyed out.
So was it not greyed out or is there another way to edit it?
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If you look at the second screenshot (above), you will see details of the document to the right of the image. Under Events the detail was "from 1887-1900", but the Editing tool (pencil) alongside allowed me to change that to how it now appears - as "16 July 1896".
As you know, it is not often we have the opportunity to edit UK records, as it is not common to have an image attached to the indexed record - in contrast, say, to the US Census sets. So, this was a rare chance for me to edit a record, but wonder if this method is a recently introduced way of editing, as I had not seen it before. (As you say, seeing the EDIT option greyed-out usually means editing is unavailable for that record.) I believe I was given the chance to highlight the change, but - unlike most edits where one would highlight the change on the document, in this case there was nothing to change / highlight on the image, as the detail had been indexed correctly. The problem is that the date is hidden in this set of records - so we only see the Event Date "from 1887-1900" until we (perhaps by chance) decide to click against it, which reveals that actual date, immediately below!
The only thing I can think of as some kind of analogy (although probably not a great one!) is the records in which we have "Event Place" and "Event Place (Original)" data fields. The latter usually reflects the accuracy of the event place, but the former is the one that is causing us all so much grief, as it appears to relate to the auto-standardization exercise, which has changed the true location to a location that is often half way across the globe! (As we know, it is the incorrect placename that gets carried across to the Family Tree profiles.)
Hope I have explained this clearly enough, but my complete lack of experience in this (editing) work (which, as I understand, usually involves highlighting the relevant part of the document) is not something I am finding easy to describe.
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Perhaps someone with experience of regularly editing records could explain whether the example being discussed here is a "new" way of editing, or has it been around all the time? I say this (partly) due to the fact that advice here has always been that a record cannot be edited is the "EDIT" button is greyed-out, which it is in this example. (See second screenshot from the top in this thread.)
It's not self-deprecating, but factual, to say I'm pretty clueless when it comes to editing procedures!
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I am completely ignorant of editing procedures, since the first and only time I tried, when a tiny edit (change to individual's middle initial on a US 1810 Census entry) resulted in the record being 'padlocked' from that day to this.
However I have had a detailed look at the 'England, Lancashire, Parish Registers 1538-1910' records I found in my analysis database.
Some interesting discoveries:
- The 'date ranges' only appear on Marriages and Marriage Banns as far as I can see.
- The 'date ranges' only appear on the Persona metadata, and, wherever date ranges are present, the Relationship metadata always has the proper date.
- The citation always has the proper date.
Examples:
citation
personaEventTypes
personaEventDates
relationshipEventTypes
relationshipEventDates
'England, Lancashire, Parish Registers 1538-1910', , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJD6-7JFX : Sun Mar 10 08:04:17 UTC 2024), Entry for Henry Hickson and Elizabeth Crook, 26 Apr 1846.
EVENT_DATE:from 1842 to 1877
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:1842-1877
EVENT_TYPE_ORIG:Marriage banns
EVENT_DATE:26 Apr 1846
EVENT_DATE:26 April 1846
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:26 Apr 1846
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:26 April 1846
'England, Lancashire, Parish Registers 1538-1910', , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJD8-2H6H : Fri Mar 08 18:15:30 UTC 2024), Entry for Francis Clarke and Elizabeth Hodge, 19 Feb 1832.
EVENT_DATE:from 1824 to 1837
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:1824-1837
EVENT_TYPE_ORIG:Marriage banns
EVENT_DATE:19 Feb 1832
EVENT_DATE:19 February 1832
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:19 Feb 1832
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:19 February 1832
'England, Lancashire, Parish Registers 1538-1910', , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJD6-7GL6 : Fri Mar 08 10:36:25 UTC 2024), Entry for Henry Hickson and Henry Hickson, 26 Apr 1846.
EVENT_DATE:from 1837 to 1853
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:1837-1853
EVENT_TYPE_ORIG:Marriages
EVENT_DATE:26 Apr 1846
EVENT_DATE:26 April 1846
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:26 Apr 1846
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:26 April 1846
'England, Lancashire, Parish Registers 1538-1910', , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJD8-2NMN : Sun Mar 10 10:19:54 UTC 2024), Entry for Francis Clarke and Elizabeth Hodge, 21 Feb 1832.
EVENT_DATE:from 1813 to 1837
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:1813-1837
EVENT_TYPE_ORIG:Marriages
EVENT_DATE:21 Feb 1832
EVENT_DATE:21 February 1832
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:21 Feb 1832
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:21 February 1832
'England, Lancashire, Parish Registers 1538-1910', , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJD6-MMKH : Sat Mar 09 14:41:19 UTC 2024), Entry for David Clark and Francis Clark, 10 Apr 1773.
EVENT_TYPE_ORIG:Baptisms Burials
EVENT_DATE:10 Apr 1773
EVENT_DATE:10 April 1773
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:10 Apr 1773
'England, Lancashire, Parish Registers 1538-1910', , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJD6-3P4W : Sun Mar 10 15:23:47 UTC 2024), Entry for David Clark and Francis Clark, 10 Apr 1773.
EVENT_TYPE_ORIG:Baptisms Marriages Burials
EVENT_DATE:10 Apr 1773
EVENT_DATE:10 April 1773
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:10 Apr 1773
'England, Lancashire, Parish Registers 1538-1910', FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKKH-6GL7 : Mon Jan 20 08:10:05 UTC 2025), Entry for Sarah Ellen Watmough, 02 Apr 1843.
EVENT_TYPE_ORIG:Burials
EVENT_DATE:02 Apr 1843
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:2 Apr 1843
'England, Lancashire, Parish Registers 1538-1910', , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJD6-QHTQ : Thu Mar 07 14:06:12 UTC 2024), Entry for Ann Clark and David, 15 Apr 1804.
EVENT_TYPE_ORIG:Christening
EVENT_DATE:15 Apr 1804
EVENT_DATE:15 April 1804
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:15 Apr 1804
I do not know what effect index editing may have on any of this; @Paul W if you could identify a couple of the ones you've edited, I could have a look.
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@Paul W Just looking through search results for this collection, it appears not all of the records have been migrated to the new image viewer and that is likely why the edit button is grayed out. I never pay attention to the edit button. If you can access the image, you can edit it.
The edit process is the same as it has been for quite some time. I am a big proponent of editing as millions of AI indexed records come online. There are still some bugs that keep cropping up, but for the most part the process works and I encourage everyone to get familiar with the tool. The error in this collection is an unusual one. The date has been indexed correctly, but a second "unknown event" is showing up with the date range. You could edit by changing the unknown to marriage (or whatever) and the date range to the actual date. However, an easier way is simply to click the edit pencil next to the unknown event and delete it as it serves no purpose:
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Well, this is interesting: I just came across another record for the same marriage event that I illustrated above, but with different title / URL and this time with a "live" EDIT button.
See https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:ZQLF-L46Z?lang=en
However, this has been processed / indexed differently, i.e., without the date range, so the 1896 date appears once carried over to Harry's Sources section and does not need any edit!
If you look at https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/sources/ML9K-VC5 you will see the two items (at the top of the section from my view). The other record has a URL https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJ65-RT4Q?lang=en (that's the one I edited yesterday).
I have to disappear for a little while this afternoon but will return later. By the way, I've just edited the one record so far, having lect the ones I found earlier and just editing the date using the Edit button found once it becomes a source, not beforehand (from the record) - this "Edit" I mean:
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@Paul W I see that the first link you just gave is in a different collection, England, Lancashire, Non-Conformist Church Records, 1647-1996 - this date range issue perhaps simply doesn't arise there.
Here's what I see for your edited https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJ65-RT4Q:
citation
personaEventTypes
personaEventDates
relationshipEventTypes
relationshipEventDates
'England, Lancashire, Parish Registers 1538-1910', FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJ65-RT4Q : Mon May 05 23:05:33 UTC 2025), Entry for Harry Wrightson and William Raywood Wrightson, 16 Jul 1896.
EVENT_TYPE:Unknown
EVENT_DATE:16 July 1896
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:16 July 1896
EVENT_TYPE_ORIG:Marriages
EVENT_DATE:16 Jul 1896
EVENT_DATE:16 July 1896
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:16 Jul 1896
EVENT_DATE_ORIG:16 July 1896
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Thank you for looking into this. Yes, I can see the point about part of the problem relating to the record not yet having been migrated to the new image viewer.
As I have said elsewhere, I have been able to edit the date, and could do that in any case from the "Edit" feature once the record gets into the Sources section (for Harry Wrightson, or whoever). My main point was to raise the matter in order for the problem with the whole set / collection to be dealt with (hopefully) by someone in "FamilySearch".
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Yes, this further record is from a totally different set, albeit seemingly covering the same records and even including the same image(s). Between yourself and @SerraNola, you seem to have recognised / analysed what is happening here, but (as stated in my other responses) my main hope was to solve the overall (metadata) problem, if possible: rather than - if I was conscientious enough - to edit maybe scores of these records, one by one!
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Agreed - @SerraNola would it be possible to lose these pointless date range metadata entries altogether, so that people didn't have to edit them out of the way?
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@Paul W @MandyShaw1 It's more complicated than I thought. For each person on the record, there are two personas (different ARK #'s) indexed:
One shows the additional "Unknown Event" with date range:
The other, with no unknown event and the correct marriage date is from the Non-Conformist collection. Somehow the two have been combined on the index for the England, Lancashire, Parish Registers 1538-1910 collection:
I don't have time to investigate this further today, but obviously it will be reported to the appropriate engineering team.
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@Paul W and @SerraNola - just in case this helps with any tracing of issues, I did a Search / Records for the Harry Wrightson marriage using these criteria:
Name = Harry Wrightson (both exact)
Spouse = Margaret Flynn (both exact)
Country / State = England / Lancashire.
Those criteria give just the two records, both for the same real life marriage. One is in the "England, Lancashire, Non-Conformist Church Records, 1647-1996" collection. The other is in the "England, Lancashire, Parish Registers 1538-1910" collection.
If I add the criteria "Record Type = Marriage" to the search and repeat it, only the Non-Conformist record appears - the Parish Register one is gone. The Parish Register one reappears if I add "Record Type = Other" to the search criteria. When I investigate the Harry Wrightson persona in the Parish Register result, it has "Event Type = Unknown". His bride appears to have "Event Type = Marriages" which is also not the same as "Marriage".
And just in case anyone thinks the Non-Conformist entry is fine, when you go to view that record, the header at the top starts "Vote. England, Lancashire …" etc instead of "Vital. England, Lancashire…" etc.
(By the way, St. Peter's at Preston is Church of England, so how on earth it's got into the Non-Conformist collection, I don't know. But that seems a minor detail, to be frank!).
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I'm back to my more-common "hunting ground" of the north east of England today and have again encountered sources from the " England, Northumberland, Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1974" collection that, in common with the issue you reference in the last comment of your earlier post, refer to Church of England events.
I don't know how or why FamilySearch have managed to index records of the established church as non-conformist, as it is a problem that applies to Durham and Northumberland C of E records, as well as those for Lancashire.
Again, another metadata issue that I wish could be corrected, as it must have caused FamilySearch users no end of confusion over the years. Here's just one example, but I guess another discussion needs to be opened to deal with this specific problem:
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@Paul W This record for Mary Dunn is from a Catholic parish, which is NOT actually non-conformist but I think that's where FamilySearch has intentionally placed it. In the case of Harry Wrightson, the film has 14 items—13 Anglican and the last one Baptist.
I would like to find examples outside of this film where a date range is displayed instead of the date. I know I've seen it before but it's not something I can put in as search criteria. With more examples, it might be telling to compare metadata.
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