UK census "event place" errors, how to get rectified? No suitable feedback mechanism to ask what goi

LegacyUser

Gerry Matthews said: Can't find out how to post notice to FamilySearch regarding errors in UK census records.

The 1861 census transcripts for inner east London have become riddled with very recent errors relating to decription of "Event Place". E.g., this residence that is given as being in the City of London, which it was (and is) not.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

I have noticed that there have now been, very recent, corrections to the very absurd description of "Whitechapel" (same census, 10 mins up the road) as Altab Ali Park. The modern day site of the church of St Mary's Whitechapel is now Altab Ali Park, appropriately commemorating an appalling C20th racist murder however in C19th St Mary's was still standing and as an area description (civil parish?) covered far more than the church itself! (Damaged too badly 1940/1 to be rebuilt.)

Very frustrating that no "error feedback" possible.

LegacyUser

Paul said: This kind of problem has proved frustrating to many of us over the years. There appears no direct interest in FamiySearch correcting these and other "metadata" errors, even though they are inclined to involve the records of thousands of individuals.

I see in your example that the place reads, "City of London, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom". As you imply, there has never been such a place - the City of London being as much apart from any county in England as Washington D.C., I believe, is from any state in the U.S.A.

The using of modern day place locations - as opposed to the correct, historical ones - is quite common in FamilySearch records, although the responsibility for this does sometimes lie in how records come across from websites such as Find My Past and Find A Grave.

Yes, a link to report such errors (as can be found against items in the FamilySearch "Catalog") would be great - but only if this did lead to the corrections being made, of course.

LegacyUser

Paul said: BTW - I do realise that St George in the East parish was in Middlesex, not the City of London.

LegacyUser

Gerry Matthews said: Yes that came across thanks (CoL and Middx).

This is possibly a FMP error but it seems strange that this has been happening v recently as these mad entries are new the transcripts. Somehow feedback is getting through to get the matter corrected to the now absurd extra field "event place" (the mad entries) plus "(orginal) event place" (the original ED transcription that was the FS entry upto a few weeks? back).

1st sentence 3rd para should have read, (see I can't do C+I for italics for the quote),

"I have noticed that there have now been, very recent, corrections to the very absurd description of "Whitechapel" (same census, 10 mins up the road) as "Altab Ali Park" ".

It's the name that commemorates the victim - the park on the old church site dates from earlier...

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Gerry - as far as I understand, "Event Place (Original)" represents what comes out of the manual part of the indexing process - a combination of someone typing and the "meta data" that's set up for a group of records.

"Event Place" then comes out of an automatic, background process that attempts to standardise "Event Place (Original)". This automatic process is somewhat opaque but I definitely believe that the year of the event comes into play. If you go to the https://www.familysearch.org/research... and enter Margaret Flynn's Event Place (Original) of "St Georges East, London, Middlesex, England" then the first date appropriate place-name in the standards suggested is "City of London, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom".

That choice is the best of a bad bunch as there are lots of St. Georges across England!

However, there is already a standard place-name of "Saint George in the East, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom". So why did the background routine not pick up that and instead picked up "City of London, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom"? (And let's not go into whether that's even a sensible name in the first place!)

I suspect that it did so because the Event Place (Original) of "St Georges East, London, Middlesex, England" is just that bit too removed from "Saint George in the East, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom". Note the missing "in the", for starters, and the extra "s". (If you feel like a rant here about why people are indexing with place-names that aren't in the standards list, feel free to do so. )

How to fix this one? I think that you need to go to the entry for "Saint George in the East, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom" on https://www.familysearch.org/research...
Then click on "Improve this place" and request a change to the Alternate Name (see drop down list) and ask for "St Georges East" to be made an alternate name of "Saint George in the East"

I have no idea how long it will be before Margaret's index record will be corrected to pick up "Saint George in the East, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom" but it will, eventually, happen. (The automatic background runs are repeated but not very often, to avoid shifting values.)