Thoughts on Correcting Errors in the Records
Comments
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Joe Mode said: Ditto to what Don said. I can read actual census records, etc, on this site and Ancestry. The main difference between myself and the transcriber is that I KNOW who my family is and KNOW what their names are. The transcriber has to guess if they can't quite read the information. I have no intentions of correcting random records, I want to be able to correct records dealing with MY family and give evidence to justify such a change. For instance, I looked at length for the last name Potts. This name was spelled incorrectly on a number of records, Patts, Pates, Potter, you name it. I think I should be able to correct such mistakes. Like I said once before, my 3rd great grandfather was listed as Evan Taylor, rather than Evan Taylor Davis. How long do you think it took me to find him?0
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Brenda (Garwood) Smith said: I was looking for my gg-grandmother, Sarah Catherine Leffew. She 1st married Samuel DeVries, then Davis Lowe, who died only months after they wed. I located Davis Lowe using the US Dept of Veterans Affairs Gravesite Locator, the date & place of death matched what my family knows. He died fighting in the Civil War. But, still looking for info to verify his marriage to my gg-grandmother, the familysearch website actually lists "Davis Lowe" as the groom and "David Shipman" as the bride??!! The date and place of the marriage makes me positive this was the marriage with my Sarah Catherine (Leffew) DeVries. The image is not available online. Does anyone know how I can find the original record?0
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Margi Ranieri said: Wonderful site when you can find family records with the correct surname.
Explain to us how ancestry.com for several years has the technology to accept annotations and corrections to their records then acknowledges same via email to the user but Family Search still does not offer this feature?0 -
JEAN HARDCASTLE said: Yes, Wayne as an arbitrator I have often wondered why we are not required to check every entry not just those that the indexers disagree on.0
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JEAN HARDCASTLE said: Any searcher who reports an error to FreeBMD has to provide evidence to support their claim.0
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Kathryn Davis said: I understand the difficulty in transcribing the records. But, the thing that frustrates me is when someone knowingly submits information on the family trees that is incorrect.0
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RAYMOND F. BASS said: Peleg Card (1740-1777) died in Pownal, Vermont. Genealogies continuously note his dod as April 6, 1777. That is an error. I live 12 miles away from Pownal and have visited the grave of Peleg Card on numerous occasions. Per his headstone (I do have photos of same), he died on 6 SEPTEMBER 1777. In fact, he and his brother Jonathan were sheduled to be tried by the Vermont Committee of Safety for Loyalist activities just days before Peleg died. Unless Vermont is in the habit of placing corpses on trial, Peleg Card certainly did not die in April 1777. I wish that this, somehow, could be corrected.0
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Don Cameron said: When I find errors on the FeeBDM website (Births, Deaths and Marriages in England and Wales), I add postem notes, and give my reasons as to why the entry is incorrect. Mostly these errors are mis-transcriptions of surnames. Whenever I purchase certificates I add all the details from the certificates onto postem notes. This way it helps save others from purchasing expensive certificates. I do this even when the certificate has been purchased in error. You can see what I mean if you look at my FOUCARD family on the BMD website. Everyone with this surname in England is related to me, except Maurice FOUCARD. So I don't need to purchase every certificate. I would suggest everyone do this for the certificates they purchase. I also add my e-mail address so people can contact me. However, once you post a postem note, you can't change it, so you have to make sure you make correct posts. Otherwise you need to add more postem notes.0
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Wallace Edward Woodbury said: One record has me deceased as 1930 I am still alive and breathing
Wallace Edward Woodbury 11/20/1926 birth also my brother Aarl is changed
to Earl0 -
Wallace Edward Woodbury said: There should be a way for an immediate family member to correct someone elses goof. Wallace Edward Woodbury 11/20/19260
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RAYMOND F. BASS said: I neglected to note that the scheduled trial of Jonathan and Peleg Card was set for early September 1777.... likely concerning the Battle of Bennington which took place on 16 Aug 1777. Sorry.0
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RAYMOND F. BASS said: You -- we --- pay for Ancestry.com. This is free.0
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Don Cameron said: Raymond,
An error is an error, whether we are paying for a transcription or not. I don't think anyone who accesses Familyseach.org has anything other than genuine respect for the LDS, and gratitude for their generosity in making all these records available to the general public. However, wrong data needs to be corrected, even the LDS recognise this fact, otherwise we would not have this discussion page.0 -
RAYMOND F. BASS said: The point is that Ancestry has the funds necessary for the establishment of a mechanism to Highlight .. not Correct .. errors (as well as the responsibility to do so - because we pay them to do so.) Yes, the LDS recognizes that such a mechanism is needed but, when the hot dogs are free, complaining about the mustard is a bit over the top. The need has been established, I have no doubt that it will be dealt with appropriately. In the meantime, we just have to pay attention.0
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Robert Phillips said: An excellent summary. I agree wholeheartedly.0
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Robert Phillips said: If people are knowingly submitting false information, they deserve total condemnation. However, the main thing I see are either genuine errors or the result of sloppy research, including attempts to make data fit a desired outcome.0
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Don Cameron said: I don't see this page as a complaints page at all, rather I see it, as I'm sure it was intended, a place where ideas can be expressed. Obviously the LDS want our views and ideas, so that when they do introduce a method of correcting or "highlighting" errors all avenues have been explored. I don't see anyone here making demands on the LDS, as that would be unjustified and somewhat counter productive. Sure, if you have a subscription to one of the paid genealogical resource sites like Ancestry.com, you would expect some such system. However, BrightSolid (Findmypast) don't offer a user generated interactive correction/ highlighting function. You have to write to them and they make the judgement as to whether they will correct the error or not. Such a system has me making no corrections on Findmypast at all, even when the errors are so bleeding obvious. What this means is that people looking for the same people I am, have to go through the same time wasting experience, when my correction/ highlighting would have saved them hours and hours of research. The BrightSolid system is very counter productive and wastes a lot of mustard!0
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Charles James Graham said: My name is Charles James Graham. I believe I know when and where I was married, and I have the documentation. On your records the marriage place is incorrect. Since this apparently came from some form of Church Records, it cannot be corrected. I can only offer my "opinion" as to where I was married. It would appear to me there must be some way to prevent this error to persists in perpituity since someone else apparently knows better than I. If the individual involved cannot correct the record, the entire enterprise appears to be in question.0
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kathleen gomes said: The topic of correcting "errors" must include recognition of the fact that, when the informant misreported what he or she heard, this in itself is part of the historical record and tells us much about the socio-cultural landscape at the time.
A name that was reported as Di Giuseppe and recorded by a US Census worker as Firseppe tells us much about the times of the event. Likewise, the recording of the name of Spataro as Spadaro represents a fact about the linguistic history of Southern Italy. It calls the researcher to be more of a historian.0 -
Joyce Snyder said: WRONG PERSON ON A DEATH CERF. IT HAD THE WRONG PERSON LISTED
THE PERSON WHOM WAS LISTED WAS KENNETH LEVI HOWDYSHELL WHO DIED 26 MAY 1940 IN HOCKING CO OHIO ,MY COUSIN LENA SWAIN DIE 25 MAY 1940.
CAN YOU HELP FIX THIS PROBLEM.
THANKS JOYCE SNYDER0 -
Adam Christian Fugal said: Personally I think spelling issues have been reasonably dealt with already. I bet a lot of my ancestors didn't even know how to spell there names so there is no "correct" spelling. Some spellings are obviously wrong but anybody can add a spelling in there own geneology or newFamilySearch tree.
The bigger problem is people are mis-combined and relationships mis-established. This is the problem eveybody, including those who don't get into geneology, are most frustrated by (and drives most of my family members from even trying). It is also the most hairy because the "relationships" is what new.FamilySearch is all about and I don't want other people deleting my stuff (and ordinances can't be deleted anyway).
There needs to be a "grassroots" approach but you need a "Ward-clerk" type person in charge of making sure a renegade geneologist doesn't delete their mother-in-law's tree or whatever. I think it really does need to be on the ward or at most the stake level, though, or it will be impossible to get all the huge screw-ups fixed that need to be fixed.0 -
Pamela Lynn O'Brien said: That's sounds like a great idea. I have a friend who is an Arbitrator, and she has stated she has seen many instances where a NOTE area would be useful0
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Pamela Lynn O'Brien said: Ditto!0
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Geraldine Beth Cade said: My suggestion - I found my grandfather who I put in all the info on and later - some years later found a woman added to my grandfather as a wife that never exsisted- and in turn added my Uncle as their child - I cannot fix this and yet I know it is wrong. I would suggest a new caption by where you can select spouse and children, parents and siblings that a new caption for individuals to use - corrections and additons to your family programmed into the software. In turn it would identfiy who is doing the correction and how to contact them - also in turn programmed into the software an area these corrections and additions would go to a clerk to fix permanently. It is very frustrating to have all the info and yet the church records are incorrect on a family member. My name is Geraldine Moser Cade and can be reached at tomgeri2@q.com - Thank you very much.
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Barbara scott said: My grandmother Maude Arterburn was not the 1st child born and Minnie Arterburn was my grandmother's twin and not the 7th child born to John Thomas Arterbun and Barbara Ella Kennedy.
Thank you,
Barbara S0 -
R Galloway said: Just found an SC death record for Clarence V Galloway in NFS that gave a burial as Hebron, NC -- surprising, since Ancestry gave this as Hebron, M E (which, if you knew the area places names, it is: Hebron Methodist Episcopal Churchyard, Stokes Bridge, Lee county, SC!!) Can the arbitrators be from or know the area !!!?? Might cut the errors a bit! Of course, we who search can sometimes (but not always), see the errors...and just make the correction in the New Family Search....where it all counts!! [just worry about the times we don't find the errors!!] But, experience has shown that records are always subject to these variations and patience, diligence (check and re-check..)
and good luck may prevail. [That church is now called: Hebron United Methodist Church]0 -
James Bridges said: Anas Joseph Cater, male, should be Mrs Joseph Cater, female. per Texas death cert. transcription error.0
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Don Cameron said: I don't mean to be rude or offensive in any way, but this page is not about mentioning errors in records as they currently stand. I believe it's a page about how the current system works, and how it might be changed in the future to reflect some of the ideas we offer.
Nobody is going to change the errors you mention, unless the system changes. So giving the details here, is a complete waste of your time and effort. Of course mentioning an error to highlight your suggestion or idea is reasonable.
Don Cameron.0 -
robertkehrer said: Jerry,
We are working on designing and building a user annotation system that will let you add a correction to a record.
Your question is an interesting one and it turns out that the system to do this correctly is non-trivial. I thought you, and others who have asked this question, might like some insight. Read-on if you like technical minutia...
FamilySearch, like many search sites, is built to store large amounts of data and push that data to users in response to queries. Behind the scenes there are many databases full of "cannonical" record data, terabytes of images & image data, search indexes, etc covering ~2.4 billions records, growing daily. Between each database there are all kinds of software tools that pull/push/reformat/validate/index/or-otherwise-munge the data to make it searchable and preserve it's integrity. The data flow through all of these is in one direction - toward you, the user.
Delivering to users a means to annotate these records and make the annotations searchable requires us to build a data flow from the web software client backwards through this "data pipeline" into the canonical databases. Each of the many software elements in the flow will need to be changed to accommodate this new capability. We will also need to design, test and implement some substantial new interface components to expose these new tools to users.
Likewise, you may be familiar with all the double-blind, arbitrated indexing work that is required to 'extract' the data from images and make it searchable with a high level of accuracy. (even a tremendous less that 1% inaccuracy rate amounts to a lot of records for users to annotate when we are talking about 2.4 billion records). Some of that logic and data validation, but probably not all, will need to be instrumented in this new system as well to insure incoming data quality from users.
We'll get this done, but it will take some time to do it correctly.0 -
kathleen gomes said: Thanks to the Employee for clarifying how the system would be changed to allow annotation. Excellent design! Looking forward to its implementation...0
This discussion has been closed.