Thoughts on Correcting Errors in the Records
Comments
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Karen Lynn Fraser said: Well, I was a little upset when I clicked onto this page but now that I see many people have had this problem for a long time, I think I am now a lot upset.
Could you please give us an update on this situation. There must be someone at the helm that can do something until the program is changed. A bandaid does have its' uses, you know. Thank you for the efforts overall. Karen Fraser0 -
Dorel Greenhalgh Kump said: I agree with Mary that we should be able to correct mistakes. A person that I do not know has sent in false information on me, Dorel Greenhalgh, they report that I died in June 2006. Well I want you to know that I am still alive at 91. I have tried to correct this four other times. I went to The Family History Center personnally and talked to the people there. They make phone calls and tell me everything has been taken care of and it still appears the same. There is a Dorel George Greenhalgh that died in in June of 2006, buried in Enterprise, Utah. People just DO NOT DO THE NECESSARY RESEARCH that needs to be done to send in correct information.!!!
Dorel Greenhalgh Kump0 -
Pamela Lynn O'Brien said: I also agree with Mary and Dorel
I in error input that someone died. This was done after a RELATIVE mixed up the "Dead" person with their, I contacted Salt Lake to correct and the answer to me was how I do I know she is ALIVE, and I answered that I talked to her the previous week. She told me to send them PROOF she was Living. I asked how to prove, should I bring them there for them to Talk? I submitted the info and they (the person at Utah) refused to delete my Submittal.. Be careful what you submit,0 -
andrew said: I would like searching to be easier, if you put in death state every thing comes up not just that state. I found a relative death certificate listing but another persons death certificate comes up. I checked under the other persons name and the same certificate comes up.The person that is incorect is Mrs. Robert Weise b. Jan. 27, 1874 d. Oct. 2, 1928
Andrew Moehnke0 -
gasmodels said: You should contact support about this issue. This thread is about suggestions for improvement to the system not for specific problems.0
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Pamela Lynn O'Brien said: How many Times does it NEED TO BE SAID, this is a site for suggestions on HOW to improve NOT HELP NEEDED>0
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Rose Ann Hardcastle said: Over 20 years ago, I submitted my 4 generation worksheet. Now I have done more research and want to correct the data that I have entered. However, I am currently registered under my married name and cannot change anything I got wrong. Is there any way to merge my two names so I can correct the errors I made. Most of the information I got then was personal communication, and now I have documents.
Rose Hardcastle0 -
Mary Susan (Carlson) Scott said: Call FamilySearch support. If you submitted your 4 generations twenty years ago, then that work probably became part of the Ancestral File. The Ancestral File is a "closed" database and updates, edits, and corrections are probably not possible but talk to someone in FamilySearch support at 1-866-406-1830.
If any temple ordinances were completed by you, they will be found in New FamilySearch . You can then add the sources and references to the source documents there.
Mary Scott0 -
Pat Mann said: I have been following this dialogue on correcting entries for some time now. I noticed how it became a site for complaining about records not done the way people thought. I was getting frustrated too. I felt I had no right to complain until I tried to transcribe some records - what an eye opener. I did the 1861 census page that contained my ancestors. For the people I knew it was easy as I knew the spellings (I hope) but when you see Aallexander and the A looks like an H and then you see Ann later you know that was how the enumerator wrote the letter A. Transcribing is writing what you see and not what you think or want to think ie for Cambel I wanted to change it to Campbell; Aallexander to Alexander; McMull?n to McMullen/McMullon. I guess that is why you need to try as many different name spellings when searching. I still get frustrated when I find a record that is misspelled and it is so obvious when you see the original. This is when the transcriber has put their own spin to the spelling I feel or are in a rush to add records they don't take the time to look at how the recorder wrote letters. Anyway thanks for making this free site (however I did notice some images required payement from another site???) as I feel this site cares about people finding their families and not just money.0
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Pamela Lynn O'Brien said: Pat I agree, But now how to get some kind of ANOTHER Open added as a supplicate. I beleave the PROGRAMMERS AKA The ENGINEERS Should NOW see we all basically see where we need to be HEADED AND will just as we say in Texas "Get ER DOWN" so we can Get ER done on Geni,. But I am also an indexer NOW and the way Family Search is doing it is the Same Index is done by 2 Different indexers Part A and PART B. They are to Transcribe "WHAT They See" and if both agree when doneand Submitted , they go on to SLC to be submitted. .as Done and will be released into the Family Search as records from the Digital Records. If they don't they go to a Third person Arbitrator who compares the DIFFERENCE and Using her judgment makes correction if she is sure, OR IF NOT SURE goes up another Level for a fourth person to look at it .
I being an indexer don'tr always agree with the Arbitrator, but do understand maybe how they made their decision..
Just realize that they (we) are all VOLUNTEERS and and give a great of Tim and effort to get these MILLIONS of FILMS and who knows How Many Billions or Morei records are being put at our Fingertips Litterly on the Internet. and the Early Transcribers and That includes the PEOPLE did.t have the best schooling and did the best they could.
The Best solution I agree is another opinion of the correct SPELLINGS, and we have that in the BETA WWW.new.Familysearch which is being Betta tested now and is not Perfect, But it is something. Even Patrons TODAY, DON'T read what is there before typing and duplicating additions of opinions with Names,Dates,PARENTS and Spouses as well as their Kids.
So in Conclusion," ENGINEERING Start your programming and get us this correctional part, that doesn't change the ORIGINAL Transcriptions.0 -
Maree Vann said: My grandparents are shown as black and they were white. I would like to get this corrected. I searched my father (their son) and he is shown as white.0
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Pamela Lynn O'Brien said: Maree do you have ANY documents that show him as WHITE, Census, Birth,Marriage etc if so get with Support and Even if you don't get with then and see what you need to provide to get this corrected and don't Stop with Not a thing can correct JUST Tell them you want a higher up to help, as alot of times the first line doesn't send you the correct answer
Good Luck0 -
Don Cameron said: This seems to be an important issue for you Maree, and while I agree that it should be corrected, in the scheme of things does it really matter that much. Black or white why should colour be important, we all come out of Africa, it's just that "white" people had some kind of genetic mutation that handed down the generations. We don't know for sure what colour the original inhabitants of Africa were, but I suspect it was black, so back aways your ancestors were black, just like mine!0
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Karla York Nelson said: To Thomas James Potter:
It appears that there is (hopefully) an easy fix for your problem. I think your grandfather was not actually sealed to Catherine Evans. Rather, for some odd reason, someone has combined your grandfather's record with that of a Griff Roberts. If you will go to your grandfather's record and click either "Details" or "Summary", then go to the bottom of that page and click on "Combined Records", you will be able to separate the Griff Roberts record out of your grandfather's record. Griff Roberts is currently record #11, so you will need to change "Records per page" to 20 or more so that you will see him. That is the only record on which Catherine appears as spouse when looking at the combined records. I believe that should take care of this error.
KYN0 -
Leonard McCown said: It does matter if it is incorrect. If there is a box to indicate color, I choose it in searching to cut down on the number of records to be searched.0
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andrew said: I do not feel that the should be able to change records, but there should be a better system to report errors and a better system to correct them.0
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Carol St. Thomas said: I have a copy of my grandmothers obituary showing her to be the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Benedict Merkel. The record for my grandmother (Louise C. Merkel) on family search shows her parents to be a completely different name. This type of error could really send you in a different direction with a family search. I am 70 years old and as far as I know am one of the oldest great grandchildren and cannot verify this type of information with any other relative.0
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Anne England said: Carol, be sure to scan & upload it to your tree or website. How frustrating it must be for you. I have an online tree on Ancestry that I try to attach all documents that I can to help others verify one way or another if the person they're looking for is correct. I hope you get your issue solved. I appreciate FamilySearch & hope there will be a good place to have things like this taken care of. Maybe there's a way we can all help each other. Perhaps FamilySearch can come up with a good way to air & solve these things together. Blessings!0
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Anne England said: I agree, Leonard. Mr. Cameron's comment was unnecessarily patronizing. Maree, your issue was short & to the point. Hope it gets corrected.0
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EdieJune said: On information on Ancestral Trees I would like it to be possible to contact the submitter for correction.0
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Keith Harry Lenton said: I agree the system is already a mess with every tom dick and harry inserting rubbish and anyone who knows what they are doing suffers.0
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Keith Harry Lenton said: I did get in touch with the person who made the entry and he corrected it. i get frustrated after having straightened my family line the next time i go into family search it has been changed back to what i think is wrong, why cant we save our own family tree the way our records show is correct and if anyone else feels it is wrong let them keep their own the way they want.0
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Shawn Childers said: Really need a way to correct information. As a retired computer programmer myself, I can't believe you designed sofftware that assumes no errors would be made with no way to correct them. For instance, someone, I don't know who, put info about my family out here that shows my brother and sister as both being dead. From personal knowledge, I know my brother and sister to both be very much alive. A date error was made in which their MARRIAGE dates were recorded as their DEATH dates. Really need a way to correct snafus like this or else who can trust the information out here.0
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gasmodels said: Shawn - there are ways to correct some information - if living people are displayed as deceased there are corrections that can be made. I suggest you contact FamilySearch support at 1-866-406-1830 to get help with this issue. It will help if you can provide them with where you are finding the incorrect record.
The subject of this thread should be confined to what can be done to indicate errors or mis-indexing of historical records. These are records that have been filmed, indexed and published at www.familysearch.org. There have been some great suggestions on the thread for allowing the adding of notes to the record and I sure there will be other suggestions. Hopefully the developers will consider some of these alternatives in the future so the users will not be continually mislead. However, we must also remember that sometime records provide conflicting information and there is no justification for modifying something that had been indexed correctly but was originally recorded incorrectly -- in that case a clarifying notation might be valuable. Just my thoughts0 -
Dorel Greenhalgh Kump said: I have been to Family search three times and each time the say they have made the correction, but it still has me listed as dead in 2006.0
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Terri White said: @Dorel
Have you made sure to let them know if you are looking at familysearch or new.familysearch, and make sure you give them the Personal Identifier as well. Maybe that will help.0 -
Gayle Crissman said: In the 1870 Ohio Hardin Goshen census under Thomas Armstrong, there is listed a "Willie Unreadable". Knowing the family as i do, his last name would be McQuown. Thomas' wife's maiden name was McQuown, a prominent family from Armstrong County, PA. Based on that, i would guess that Willie was a nephew.0
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Gayle Crissman said: Perhaps the best way to handle this is to have volunteers man correction emails. People are told to verify all information found on this site, so no proof would actually have to be given. That would be the simplest way to approach this.0
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Leonard McCown said: Gayle, had to take a look at Willie "unreadable". I pulled it up on Ancestry and it is listed as McQuown, and the image is clearly that. Enlarging helps a lot!0
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Janet Hall said: I hope this isn't a duplicate; my first message disappeared.
Do the founders, organizers and web-masters understand that we do not expect them to correct THEIR data as posted, flawed as it may be? All we ask is a little side bar where we, who know more about that particular person or surname than do the indexers, can put our comments. That surely is not beyond their capability.
Responsible genealogists know you don't correct an "original record" (although having gone to ohio and looked at some death records transcribed on familysearch, I know there are many errors in that process and we are not seeing the information as given on the original record), but we should be able to make comments to guide other researchers who may take this error as given.
Today I looked at death records in Florida. In the first four records, there were six errors. "RANKISS" for "RANKIN" is a clear case of mis interpreting bad handwriting. But a good transcriber looks at other documents by the same clerk to see how letters are formed, to do the best job possible.
Many of the indexing errors in ancestry.com's original records such as census are because that work was outsourced to India. Many of my Indiana ancestors in census are noted as being born in India! But I had heard, and hoped, that for US Record indexing, the volunteers were in the US. I know I certainly wouldn't do a very good job working on records for Calcutta!0
This discussion has been closed.