Thoughts on Correcting Errors in the Records
Comments
-
JEAN HARDCASTLE said: The Genealogist Co.Uk also outsource the census forms to India for indexing. The
resulting mistakes are incredible and have to be corrected by volunteers.0 -
Janet Hall said: To quote:>> 1) There may be a mismatch between the language of the record and the indexer's knowledge causing diacritics to be missed or combined characters to be misinterpreted
2) The handwriting may be nearly incomprehensible, nearly being the operative word, and the transcription is attempted but transcribed wrong
3) The census taker may have written down what he heard rather than clarify the name's spelling
4) The office census worker who transcribed into the official record what the door to door census taker wrote may have introduced spelling errors (they had to read the guy's crazy handwriting too).
5) The variant spelling may actually have been used by the new immigrant for a while after they arrived in the country because that is what some employer or immigration worker wrote down.
6) any number of others << !!!!!!
Again: No responsible genealogist wants corrections made to original records. We can't be like the "wiki" stuff where anyone can pop in and change anything.
I can speak to Number Six which covers a lot of ground and I would say some of that is "carelessness."
In a recent search which involved scanned documents with data on two sides I was searching for a mother's surname, my only clue to this person, which was on the obverse of the document. No hits came up. But that name is there; the indexer just put the data from ANOTHER document on the screen. How can errors such as this happen if there is a check system? The genius of this source is that we are able to see original documents. So many people just depend on Internet for research and many had never seen an original document. Indeed many didn't even know what one was or understand the necessity for it. I jumped for joy when this project was announced. I am disappointed that so many are "no image available" but I can always order film.
Now we have so much available, but if this indexing is going to be so badly handled it does itself a disservice.
I grant that people make mistakes and we have to allow for that. But not to have a place for annotations is just so wrong. Someone did not think this through.0 -
Anne England said: I found a relative I had overlooked bc it said she was born in the West Indies. It clearly says West Virginia on the census. The automatic place names pop-up has West Indies just before West Virginia, so that was probably how it ended up on the record.0
-
Patrice Drake said: Keith, I agree. I am so irritated that my family tree has been changed because somebody else tied their line to my line several generations down, which changed my direct line. I am the one who originally submitted the information, yet it got changed by somebody else, and now I cannot change it back.0
-
Ann Bergelt said: In checking classes available during the week of Feb. 12th, when I will be at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, I noticed one which appears to cover this subject. If it's not possible, is that all the class is going to cover?0
-
Ruth Coral Criger said: In checking the list of ordinances I've reserved which still need to be done, I came across the endowment for my relative, Charles Henry Heileman, b. 26 Apr. 1862 in Boston, MA. I have the original ordinance card stamped 26 Oct. 2011, Bountiful. How can I get this ordinance recorded?
I appreciate your attempts to keep us imformed and to correct problems with new.familysearch. All in all, I love this site and the opportunity it gives me to connect with my ancestors. Thank you.0 -
Mary Susan (Carlson) Scott said: Is the endowment not yet recorded in New FamilySearch?
If that is the case, you will need to take the family file card for Charles Henry Heileman to the temple and check with the recorder and/or his staff. You might be able to do this by telephone but it is better if you can go in person.
Sometimes the ordinances are stamped on the cards but don't make the transfer to New FamilySearch.
Researchers/patrons can not make any changes, edits, corrections to the temple ordinances on New FamilySearch. These ordinances are the responsibility of the temples.0 -
Leslie Hollands said: Robert Kehrer,
Thank You for the info. I must say I was glad to find the article. I too was a little frustrated with Transcription (Indexing) Errors. Especially when it is a 2nd Generation. But if I did not know the entire Family and City, County, State, etc., etc. I would have Transcribed the Surname Scharf as Schorf also. I mean can you read that guy's crazy handwriting? So basically people you could blame the door-to-door census taker with his/her poor penmanship. Please do not blame anyone at Family Search. Be thankful the info. is available. Oh, and free too. Just sayin'
0 -
E Fischer said: Transcription errors make me sad but it is understandable. What is not is allowing corrections. I know you all do your best and this site is a wonderful resources. I hope you will consider finding a way for us to correct transcription errors so future folks will be able to find their relatives.0
-
Jean Keener said: I realize transcriptions errors are understandable, but do think a thorough review & common sense should enter into this new system, when posting records. Shouldn't someone question & review these records before the final entry?
Two years ago, I found the marriage of my maternal grandparents on the Family Search website. Their names were Collier HAWKINS & BESSIE EVILINE Tucker. It is posted under the Virginia Marriages 1785-1940 as ---- Collier HAWTHORNE & CAFRIE SOGLEIS TUCKER. When have you ever heard of a name like that? Collier's FATHER"S name is INCORRECT, but his mother's name, my grandmother's parent's names & the dates are correct. If this entry had been reveiwed, perhaps someone might have questioned the ridiculous spelling of my grandmother's name & other Incorrect data.
I complained & was told that the ability to make corrections would be available by the end of 2010. It is now 2012 & the record is still wrong. They now tell me they don't know when it will be available, if ever.
Years ago, I sent a PAF disk to Utah with the correct information & it was entered.
Perhaps it would be better if the Family Search group would stop trying to transcript these old records. Everytime I check, I see more & more errors. If they are using records from Ancestry, thats another joke.
I have been reading old records for many years & know that some handwriting was difficult with mispelled names & incorrect dates, but I used my brain to decipher them. I learned never to take anything for granted before checking thoroughly.0 -
Anne England said: Well spoken, Jean. Wow, that's pretty bad. I'm glad I can add comments on Ancestry, although the records aren't changed. A relative born in West Virginia was transcribed West Indies, although the record is clear - was that auto location thing, I guess. Sigh.0
-
Anne England said: One letter or two is understandable. I've indexed & have those issues also. But made up ridiculous names are another matter, as Jean points out. I've seen a lot of those on Ancestry. If it weren't for the other family members, I'd have never found them. Just saying...
0 -
Leslie Hollands said: Relearning the Spelling of Your Surnames
– George G. Morgan
One of my greatest challenges in my early genealogy research was locating a great-great-grandfather in the 1850 census records of Caswell County, NC. You see, I knew my great-grandmother's name was Caroline Alice Whitfield. This was evident from her marriage license and other documents. I searched, census page by census page, for other Whitfields in the 1840 and 1860 censuses, but could find no evidence of her father. It finally dawned on me that there may have been a spelling variation on the surname.
I spent a while jotting down creative spellings, both logical and absurd, and then returned to the printed census index books. Sure enough, I found what was almost too obvious—that her father spelled his surname as Whitefield. Once past that temporary roadblock, I found all sorts of census, land, property, tax, court, probate, and other records for William A. Whitefield and for his children from his two marriages.
I learned my lesson well, and it has served me well over the years. I've encountered much less obvious surname spellings that, once known, opened wide the floodgates for other records. Examples have included: the Swords surname spelled as Soards, Sords and Swards; the Holder surname spelled (or copied) as Holden and Holler; the Monfort surname spelled as Montfort, Monford, Montford, Montedford, and Monforte; and the Pryor surname spelled as Prior and Priory.
In "Along Those Lines . . ." this week, I'd like to suggest ways of working with alternate spellings of your surnames in your research.
Developing a Strategy
You should recognize that surnames can be changed informally by the individual (such as the Whitfield/Whitefield change) or formally through a legal process to make an "official" name change. The most common occurrence seems to be that surnames are misspelled by accident. People were not as well-educated in the past as they are today. Sometimes a name on a document was written as it sounded, or perhaps it was simply misspelled by accident (as in the case of Swords and its variations above). In other cases, an individual may have changed the spelling of his/her surname to adopt a different air or perhaps to distance himself/herself with others of the same.
Consider the family surnames you are researching. I suggest that you select five of those surnames and write each surname at the top of a single sheet of paper. Spell the name as you think it should be spelled for your family's research purposes. Now, spend three minutes on each name trying to spell it different ways. Let's use the Smith surname as an example.
Try adding or subtracting letters (Smyth or Smythe).
Try spelling it as it might have been spelled in another language (Schmitt or Schmidt or Smid).
Try spelling it phonetically (Smith is pretty obvious, but can you think of other ways?).
Try developing other derivatives of the surname (Smitty, Smithy, Smithers, and Smathers).
Add superlatives or qualifiers to the base surname (Smithfield, Smithwood, Goodsmith, Hammersmith, Smithson, or others).
Try purposefully misspelling the surname as someone with less education might have done (Smit, Simith, Stith, Smish, Simish, etc.).
Once you have completed these lists, you may want to reexamine your dead-end ancestors and relatives. You now have new, alternate research paths to explore. Could one or more of these alternative spellings demolish your brick wall?
Tools for Exploring Alternative Spellings
Valuable tools for researching possible alternative spellings are the Soundex and Miracode microfilm. The Soundex system was used in the 1930s by the WPA for the Social Security Administration. The SSA needed a way to identify people who would be eligible to receive old-age benefits, specifically those … [truncated]0 -
Leslie Hollands said: Relearning the Spelling of Your Surnames
– George G. Morgan
One of my greatest challenges in my early genealogy research was locating a great-great-grandfather in the 1850 census records of Caswell County, NC. You see, I knew my great-grandmother's name was Caroline Alice Whitfield. This was evident from her marriage license and other documents. I searched, census page by census page, for other Whitfields in the 1840 and 1860 censuses, but could find no evidence of her father. It finally dawned on me that there may have been a spelling variation on the surname.
I spent a while jotting down creative spellings, both logical and absurd, and then returned to the printed census index books. Sure enough, I found what was almost too obvious—that her father spelled his surname as Whitefield. Once past that temporary roadblock, I found all sorts of census, land, property, tax, court, probate, and other records for William A. Whitefield and for his children from his two marriages.
I learned my lesson well, and it has served me well over the years. I've encountered much less obvious surname spellings that, once known, opened wide the floodgates for other records. Examples have included: the Swords surname spelled as Soards, Sords and Swards; the Holder surname spelled (or copied) as Holden and Holler; the Monfort surname spelled as Montfort, Monford, Montford, Montedford, and Monforte; and the Pryor surname spelled as Prior and Priory.
In "Along Those Lines . . ." this week, I'd like to suggest ways of working with alternate spellings of your surnames in your research.
Developing a Strategy
You should recognize that surnames can be changed informally by the individual (such as the Whitfield/Whitefield change) or formally through a legal process to make an "official" name change. The most common occurrence seems to be that surnames are misspelled by accident. People were not as well-educated in the past as they are today. Sometimes a name on a document was written as it sounded, or perhaps it was simply misspelled by accident (as in the case of Swords and its variations above). In other cases, an individual may have changed the spelling of his/her surname to adopt a different air or perhaps to distance himself/herself with others of the same.
Consider the family surnames you are researching. I suggest that you select five of those surnames and write each surname at the top of a single sheet of paper. Spell the name as you think it should be spelled for your family's research purposes. Now, spend three minutes on each name trying to spell it different ways. Let's use the Smith surname as an example.
Try adding or subtracting letters (Smyth or Smythe).
Try spelling it as it might have been spelled in another language (Schmitt or Schmidt or Smid).
Try spelling it phonetically (Smith is pretty obvious, but can you think of other ways?).
Try developing other derivatives of the surname (Smitty, Smithy, Smithers, and Smathers).
Add superlatives or qualifiers to the base surname (Smithfield, Smithwood, Goodsmith, Hammersmith, Smithson, or others).
Try purposefully misspelling the surname as someone with less education might have done (Smit, Simith, Stith, Smish, Simish, etc.).
Once you have completed these lists, you may want to reexamine your dead-end ancestors and relatives. You now have new, alternate research paths to explore. Could one or more of these alternative spellings demolish your brick wall?
Tools for Exploring Alternative Spellings
Valuable tools for researching possible alternative spellings are the Soundex and Miracode microfilm. The Soundex system was used in the 1930s by the WPA for the Social Security Administration. The SSA needed a way to identify people who would be eligible to receive old-age benefits, specifically those … [truncated]0 -
Jean Keener said: Thank you, Anne for your kind reply. I understood your problem as do you mine.0
-
Jean Keener said: Thank you for your reply, but it seems you misunderstood my intention. I am well aware of how the spelling of names can be & were sometimes different. I am NOT a novice at the game of genealogy & HAVE A COPY OF THE RECORD IN QUESTION with everything correct on it. There is no possible way the transcriber could NOT have spelled those names right.
I merely wanted to express my feeling about how transcription carelessness can cause the senseless or mispellings of names, if not reviewed & checked before the document is entered into the system. I am frustrated that there is no provision to make corrections as yet. I was told the program would be in place by the end of 2010.0 -
Jean Keener said: Write a comment...0
-
Jean Keener said: My prior reply on 15 Feb 2012 was to Mr Hollands whose comments for me have now been removed.0
-
Bill W said: I can't find the proper place on this site to enter a correction required, so here goes:
Ohio, County Marriages, 1790-1950 for William Bivans:
Clicking on "view image" brings up image # 400 for marriages, but William Bivans (actually Bevans) marriage to Sarah Headley on 22 Jul 1811 is not on this page. Here is the info off the Search Results page:
Reference Number: v1,p.13
Film number: 384300
Digital Folder Number: 4257844
Image number: 400
Please correct the image number. I would appreciate an Email with the correct number. send to bwittner@gmail.com
Thanks0 -
Murline Williams said: The baptism was done 18 Feb 2012 in Washington D.C. Temple for Edna Lois Hard PID:Kl1x-jh6.
I learned today 19 Feb 2012 by her brother's wife Bernice Hard that she is still alive. Please remove this ordinance
Murline Williams palatial1@hotmail.com
I'm helping Bernice with her genealogy.0 -
gasmodels said: please do not post that information here. you can use regular feedback, call support at 1-866-406-1830 or send an email to support@familysearch.org. This is a public area and ordinance information should not be posted here0
-
Murline Williams said: please erase this comment0
-
Jeffrey Michael Gosnell said: Agreed. There needs to be a way to click on a name and submit it as an error with, perhaps, a dropdown form with options on common errors, and a comment box that allows the user to give more detail.
The receipt of the error can be by a specialist who can then correct link.
In my case, my great grandfather who was born in 1888 in Notingham, had a son born in Norway in 1565.0 -
A Davenport said: My GGrandfather Williams Evans Baker b 12 Jun 1834 in Warwickshire has been
married to Rebecca Jane Eastman died 1845 In Jefferson, NY, USA. This isn't a transcription error. These people never met in life. So why were they sealed to-gether?
This was contributed by the church:
12 November 1897 Salt Lake City Utah Temple
Source type: Other, Repository name: The Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Repository city: Salt Lake City, Repository state: UT, Repository country: USA, Repository postal code: 84150, Event date: 20 Mar 2007, LDS temple record number: 55977791, Contributor: TEMPLE, Contributor of repository: DATA_ADMIN
William was still alive in 1897 and so was his actual wife, Esther Celestia Cole. This would have to be a live person sealed to a dead person in the SLC temple to be correct.
how do I get this kind of error fixed?0 -
Kent Ronald DeSpain said: I have an ancestor in new.familysearch.org named Mary Dudley (ID 2671-BMB) who is listed as a male.
Her husband named Joseph Wright (ID KZ62-6ZD) is listed as a female. Can this be corrected?0 -
James Lewis Covil said: I baptized my aunt and I confirmed her. She served for several years as a Temple Oridinance Worker in the Washington Temple. Her membership records at the time of her death were in the Hampstead Ward in NC. Yet New Family Search indicates that she requires every single ordinance, starting with baptism.
This needs to be corrected!
Hazel Mae Rackley b. 20 Aug 1910 d. 1 July 2002 parents Joseph James Rackley and Ida Jane Watts.0 -
Henri J. G. Labelle said: Solution:
1. Corrections should only be made with a specific access code which means only accessible at a stake.
2. Corrections must be classified as to what type of error was made i. typo, misread paleography, illogical entry (M vs F), soundex variants, known error submitted by family member
3. Submissions MUST be double checked and sources listed
I am not a chuch member, nor am I a programmer but this is a no brainer. There has to be some 16 year old genius who can rewrite the software and allow for corrections asap and not wait another year or so to get it done, I have been working mostly in the Quebec Cathlic Records and the amount of transcription errors from French to English is nearly 40%. The "Archives Nationales du Québec" is now telling researchers not to use the database for this simple reason as you end up waisting so much time and effort just to find one record. e,g, nearly all the entires for given name Zoël are listed ender Joel.
Please find a solution to this problem SOON!0 -
Linda Foh said: I only read a few comments above but suggestions are valid to add a Comments block where users can point out Indexing/transcribing errors. I just found a Philadelphia Death Certificate for my grandfather's sister, Margaret Chambers, d. Oct. 1880. There are several problems: first, the certificate was filmed with a handwritten note covering the most important information at the top and seems to be about two different Margaret Chambers. The doctor says he treated her in Lancaster County, PA for her last three months. If she died in Lancaster Co., she would not have a Philadelphia Death Certificate. This is a logic problem that goes back to the filming stage, unfortunately. I have her mother's death certificate with the same ornate handwriting which points out the transcriber's misreading of some info. But this is the sort of thing that a user could point out. I'd encourage pursuit of such an option.
0 -
David Fleer said: I've studied over 650 transcribed & translated entries of my gr-grandfather's church records, covering some sixty years. The same person--parent or child--can have two or three different spellings (some rather bizarre), multiple abbreviations, and at least one birth or baptismal date wrong, when comparing the entry for marriage or death against the baptismal entry. How is it possible to reconcile differences inside the same source?
IMHO, some discrepancies should be left alone, entered into one's own tree as "alternatives". Give one of them preference if you have two or more truly independent sources, but don't clamor for updates from FamilySearch or Ancestry.com if there's at least a passing relationship to other sources you may have. Even the family Bible will have errors.0 -
Janet Hall said: I think if you go back and read earlier comments on this section, you will see that most of us are not quibbling about "spelling differences." Any experienced genealogist knows that there are variations and we take them into stride. I work on a surname with 46 variations.
And we also know that an original record cannot be corrected, no matter how wrong it is. What we are talking about here are transcription errors, which were not caught by whatever proof-reading system is supposed to be in place. When the actual document is not visible, we have to depend on these transcriptions by the indexers, and they are greatly flawed. This is understandable and forgiveable. I have even made mistkes myself... We need a system so that we who know - or think we do - the correct version can comment for the elucidation of others. this would not change anything, but would be a free exchange of information among researchers. The example I keep trotting out is where the reverse side of a document was incorrectly "Matched" to another one. John Jones on one side and Jane Smith on the other.
We are not "clamoring for updates", just asking for a little sidebar where we can add notes, the way ancestry.com lets us do for the outrageous census indexing job they outsourced to a country where English was not the first language.
When one's grandfather is assigned the female gender, as happened to one of these posters, can't we just append a tiny note calling attention to it?
I am very thankful for the familysearch site, believe me. But please let us comment..0
This discussion has been closed.