Thoughts on Correcting Errors in the Records

LegacyUser

Edwin Reffell said: I agree with what you say regarding corrections but having an Add a Postem as is the case with FreeBMD allows you to keep the recórd as it is but also to see the correct information instead of concealing and preventing it.

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Peter ten Hoeve said: My first time here so please forgive my ignorance but the family tree of mine shows incorrect places of death for a couple of my relatives. How do I fix that?

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Christopher Allen Young said: Tree records can be edited by anyone. It would be best to provide good reason statements and sources for your changes.

The following link is to some excellent training environment (sandbox) where you can learn by doing.

http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fh...

The link mentioned "overview of Sandbox" is about the middle way down the page.

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Carl Clark Willson said: Thanks for the information and effort, I have contacted several of the search sites that have my information wrong and they don't seem to know where the information comes from. Some say they will change it.

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Helen Radford Williams said: How do I get in touch with the people that posted this info?

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Wendell Hugh Melrose said: adding corrections to the indexing would be a very good thing... i see a lot of mistakes that mislead people because of the interpetation of the spelling that is not printed but scrawled ..

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Rita Joyner said: Yes, it is a great resource when it is accurate. But my great great grandfather is listed as a medical doctor when he was a farmer. Information is no good if it is inaccurate.

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Rita Joyner said: Amen! Very frustrated by incorrect information, even my mother's name is incorrect and she was a member of the church! Looks like they could at least get the names of church members correct.

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Cathleen Nikosey said: I understand the need to not make additional errors from having patrons submit data that is not reviewed by Familysearch.org. When you have a visual of the image and it is clear that there was a mistake, those should be corrected as soon as possible. If you get the reputation of having records that are known to be incorrect, then people will not want to use your service.

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Conrad Velaun Blake said: I tend to agree with all the comments but I don't know. In my case the original is wrong! My mother and her older brother, whom are both still alive at this writing, have the last name (in the record) Rollingson instead of Rawlinson. Other than teasing my older brother about not spelling his name right all these years (Rawlin), it doesn't have any value to anyone! In fact my biggest concern is that someone will waste time doing the LDS ordinances for a non-existing family only yo further confusing future generations-all because the church did not devise dn annotation system and are not "man enough to own up to it,,,,

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Jerry Herrin said: Since we cannot correct the inaccurate information I won't waste my time here.

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Judith Lynne Siler said: It's really very sad that errors cannot be corrected! What an over site and unfair to the novice, just think of all the families who could be sealed to the wrong ancestors

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Tom Huber said: Welcome to the community support forum for FamilySearch. FamilySearch personnel read every discussion thread and may or may not respond as their time permits. We patrons, having various levels of knowledge and experience do our best to help each other with concerns, issues. and/or questions.

This is a very old discussion and, basically, out of date. Please do not post on discussions that date back prior to summer 2016. A lot of changes and announcement have taken place since then, which is when FamilySearch was completely severed from the previous system and the last of the data was imported.

Essentially, Ron Tanner, in his RootsTech presentation show a mockup of what the feature may look like. We will be able to add to, change, and correct the indices with the feature that is currently in the works. It is expected to take about a year or so to complete, so you should probably see it about this time next year.

Ron's presentation is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0itqD.... It runs about a half-hour and is only his slides and presentation.about the feature starts around 23 minutes into the presentation.

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Robert Wren said: Tom, I'll have to slightly disagree, while this incredibly long topic (551 replies & 253 participants) may be "a very old discussion" (EIGHT years) and does not discuss "WEB" indexing, Robert Kehrer's original post is still very pertinent to the issue:

"When a patron finds their ancestor and knows that a name is incorrect they logically want to correct it so that it can be properly searched, found and recorded by those who come after.

The FamilySearch system does not currently allow a user to make corrections or annotations on a record. Nor does it provide a way for a user to submit these errors so that someone internally can make the correction. This user need, however, is well understood and a significant amount of time is being invested in mapping out a system that would allow user corrections/annotation to a record. We cannot yet announce a date when such a feature will be available, but it is on the roadmaps and drawing boards.
-Robert Kehrer"

Eight years later we still have no solution - perhaps a refocus of some FS goals are needed. As Judith said "It's really very sad that errors cannot be corrected!"

I'll add your suggestion on NOT responding to old posts to my (virtually ignored) "Forum Improvements" Topic. (As we have recently noted, Forum topics apparently CAN be easily closed, if desired.)

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Tom Huber said: Yes, they can close the old discussions, but I suspect it has to be done manually. If not, if there is an automated process, based upon the date of the last comment, response, or entry, then that needs to be implemented..

I agree that there is no solution in place for correcting index errors and should have been a long, long time ago. This was a major point of discussion in a forum on FamilySearch that predates Get Satisfaction by a number of years.

The response we got then was that they wanted to get the indexing program into place and then they would work on a means to correct the indices.

Unfortunately, from Ron's comments in his presentation, it will be at least another year...

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Claire Brisson-Banks said: I wonder if there are any updates to this topic?

Transcription errors are there and we really need to be able to correct them.

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Tom Huber said: Claire Brisson-Banks. Yes, the last "update" which really wasn't an update, was a response from Robert Kehrer (who started this post) about correcting the computer-generated indexes from obituaries.

In that post on July 18th, 2018 he said (as his third point): "FamilySearch does not yet have a user driven indexed data error correction system we can deploy across all collections. I have been saying for years that it is being worked on, and I haven't been lying, but there have been higher priorities . We are however getting closer to deploying a minimal initial system in the near future, that we can build upon over time."

That was, of course, a little over four months ago. We don't know where this very often requested feature is sitting as far as priority is concerned,

I just checked the beta site and nothing is going on there to indicate that this feature is in beta testing that users can access. There is a major update going on that will extend out close to a week (or longer), but I suspect that is pulling the existing production data into the beta site for further testing and analysis.

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Giancarlo Ribeiro de Freitas said: I agree with that

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Roberta Whitacre said: I have seen my grandfather's name as A.T., as Allen, and as Albert so how do you decide which version to use? Maybe that is why he went by A.T. a lot.

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Paul said: Fascinating to see that Robert posted this 9 years ago! As stated in other threads, I was hoping for the recent enhancement to give far more opportunity to include alternative information against indexed records. Other users seem to have a far different view from me about the extent and application of this feature.

From this post (of Robert's), perhaps it was always the intention of FamilySearch management and developers to have a relatively limited way for us to show the "true" / alternative data. In this case I am very disappointed by the limited opportunity that I will have of showing up errors - I wanted to do this whether the errors were made in the indexing process OR in the original document. I never wanted to "change" anything - just present alternative names, places, dates and ages, so other users could make their own judgements of the "facts".

If the current position is all we have been presented with after over 9 years work I am not optimistic that recording the facts about my relatives will ever be extensively possible against the indexed records. I believe this will probably have to remain information only available through their IDs in Family Tree.

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Tom Huber said: The age of this discussion also demonstrates how long we have been requesting the correction feature.

When FS started talking about this around a year ago, there were three elements to the correction feature that was being discussed: corrections (paramount), changes ("not in record" is a good example of this), and additions (missing index field, such as no name of groom even though the groom signed the form, but his name in the groom line was empty).

Currently, the "not in record" element is an issue, not only for being able to back out a mistake, but also being able to edit one's entry. Finally, there is the issue that a "not in record" ends up replacing the name everywhere the index is used.

Then we have another old discussion about badly set up indexing projects. This continues to be a problem.

Now that an indexing correction system has been released into production, there are some excellent discussions on what is wrong with the barest minimum of correcting capabilities. Many examples are being brought forth to help the engineers understand what we, the users, are having difficulties doing and the flaws in the current system which are sometimes caused by us (well, me) that need a means to correct our own mis-entered "corrections".

I am very optimistic that finally, after a decade of requesting this ability to correct transcription errors, offer alternative entries, and add to an existing index when the information is otherwise available on the form, we are starting to see the very beginnings of that means. I have confidence that now that the beginning is there, that FS developers will continue working with the feature until it is fully developed.

The reason for my optimism is because I am seeing vast improvements in the merge comparison tool. Not only do we now see any reason statements, but also I spotted a Life Sketch in a record that I was working on last night with its duplicates.

I believe that once a new (or existing) feature is beginning to be worked on, that FS moves ahead and works on making the feature better. Therefore, I am optimistic that the correction, change, and add to feature for existing indexes will eventually encompass all areas of an existing published index.

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Juli said: Paul, you *can* add information -- about names, anyway -- using the new correction feature. Some of us feel that in the current setup, you *shouldn't*, but that doesn't change the fact that one of the options is "wrong in record". There's even a note field where you can write down your reasoning.

Various FS employees have said (or implied) that the correction function will eventually be expanded to cover other things than just names. Presumably, the expansion will parallel the name-edit function and will have both "indexed incorrectly" and "wrong in record" as options.

It occurs to me that I wouldn't have as much of a problem with "wrong in record" if the resulting index entries and search results displayed those additions differently than the old-vs-new indexed names. I think Tom may have said something along these lines somewhere. Perhaps I will continue this thought on one of the more current threads on the topic....

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Janet Hall said: Don't depend on just one record, ever; "triangulate" by assessing and evaluating as many records on this man as you can find.

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Gail Anderson said: I see several spelling errors in various ancestors' names. Can I delete the entire person and re-enter him with the correct information?'
Gail A

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Juli said: Where are you seeing this? You generally can't delete much of anything on FamilySearch, but usually there's no need. On the Family Tree, just click "Edit" and fix it. On indexed records (what this ancient thread was about), make sure the image actually says what you think it says; if it does, click "edit" and fix it.