www.familysearch.org
I sent a whole lot of information on this page while logged in and all fields completed
https://www.familysearch.org/help/
I get an email telling me to come here but all the information I provided at the above link is not included in the e-mail so now I have to come here and remember everything I reported all over again. This is a really poor show the original text was not even included for me to copy and paste it here without having to regenerate it accurately.
So frustrating.
Please note, I was not requesting help. I was highlighting two Major issues with indexing on the site.
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please clarify.
do you mean you were entering a post or question here in community - and then maybe timed out?
any long message that takes more than just a few minutes - is best done in text editor
and then copied and pasted to a post window.
these posting windows are not meant to be kept open for many miutes on end before they are submitted.
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The indexing system on the site is becoming a total shambles. All the places on the South African part of the website with Shabani for example. Shabani is is Zimbabwe but the people are South African. There is no such place as Shabani in South Africa.
"Hope Town, Potgietersrus, Transvaal, South Africa" Hope Town is a town on its own. Potgietersrus is a town on it's own. They are in totally different locations in South Africa.
"Riversdale, Vereeniging, Transvaal, South Africa" Riversdale is in the Western Cape. Vereeniging is in the Transvaal.
You have opened up the data base to attempt to Standardise place names. We have a major issue in South Africa. We don't necessarily register a birth as in a town, but as on a farm name, followed by a town name. As South Africa expanded and people migrated all over they named new farms after there ancestors farms. These were then used as place names for the children born there. IE. The farm name followed buy the new farm name. This applies to Birth, Death, Baptismal and Marriage records. Now people are trying to use the standardisations from a drop down list that is not accommodating to the Farm name followed by the Town Name concept.
Then another problem I am seeing is date formats. We use Day, Month and Year, Now I see even dates being standardised. Any day 12 and less that is converted to a different format the month and date are swapped around. So for example the the sixth of April now becomes the fourth of July. Please stop trying to enforce a standardisation practice that is doomed to fail and corrupt data. For an experienced Genealogist, I have 104 000 people in my tree we check things, but inexperienced or people just grabbing anything presented to them are copping wrong information that this standardisation process is creating.
Please this needs urgent attention and the public should be stopped immediately from changing place names and dates. Just let them correct names that they are familiar with.
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Is anything being done about the above statements?
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I repeat, "Is anything being done about the above statements?"
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Hello Stewart. I don't believe this is a problem with the Indexing site. This is an overall problem with standardization of Place Names. As diligent indexers, we only transcribe the exact information that is on the document. The place names are usually not standardized on those forms. We are often lucky just to be able to index the lowest level of locality, like Hope Town. As for the dates, I know that sometimes indexers are not familiar with the day/month/year set-up and index these incorrectly. This usually happens until they reach something like 13/11/57, then they catch on. It would generally be caught by a reviewer and corrected before the image is published.
From other posts, I know that FamilySearch personnel (I am not one) are working on sorting out the messy details of place names for South Africa. But, I will share your message with the group @Indexing Chat. There are several people there who work on South African records that might have more information.
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I think you are totally mistaken. The indexing on the Zimbabwean and South African Records is becoming so corrupt you won't believe it. Did you actually read the comment I made February 17, 2021. You probably wouldn't know if Arthur was Martha regarding South African place names so would not know t it is becoming corrupt but having lived in theses two countries my whole life I am stating categorically it is corrupt.
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I read your comment. Perhaps we have a problem with semantics. Indexers and the indexing site aren't the problems. As indexers and reviewers, we only record EXACTLY what is written on a document. The problem is more with FamilyTree - after the indexing has been done and the records are published.
I don't know South African places, but, I do know that in the US we have Martha's and Arthur's in several states just as there are others in countries all over the world. (I wouldn't be so quick to judge people's ability to understand place names and world geography).
Your problem seems to be with those people who are changing the standardized places since you mentioned the general public changing standardized locations. You are also welcome to send in corrections to the standardized places.
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I also was a bit confused - due to the disjoint nature of INDEXING & INDEXING RECORDS (created y indexers and reflecting exactly what is on the document) , FAMILYSEARCH FAMILY TREE (which is data is input by millions of people around the world - most of which are not specifically trained but learn by experience, as well as a PLACE NAME database - which is continually being improved. If you feel the Place Name database has items that need correcting - that can definitely be addressed and corrected. But that would not, does not, automatically correct - any Familytree entries where the user - (which are users just like you and me) added a person - and either entered something totally wrong - or chose the wrong name in the place name database.
[ click expand post ]
To help facilitate our mutual understanding - can you please share some URL addresses - so we can go directly to the pages you are referring to - and see exactly what it is you are looking at.
Please keep in mind - MOST of the users of the community - are people just like you - and not official FS employees - or tech support people - - though indeed our goal is to be helpful and answer ay questions that we can.
Also realize that people who submit data into the FamilySearch Family Tree - are also users just like you and me - and surely have made some errors in input - as all of us have.
Also note though - any and all of us can make corrections in the Family Tree - it is a single collaborative database that we all share and are all working to correct and make better.
we all play a role in making the data more correct and complete -- but for entries in the FamilySEarch Family Tree - - usually the first avenue of resolution is contacting the user who submitted the Family Tree record in the first place.
If your comments are specifically limited to just the "place name database" - then let us know and if you need further clarification on how to correct that - we can provide more details.
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I am really afraid you are not grasping the vastness of the problem and now you are indicating me as an individual must correct the errors that exist. This was the whole point of me bringing this issue to the attention of Family Search so a concerted effort can be made to rectify the corrupt indexing system. As an individual I appreciate all the work that has gone into Family Search but if something is not done soon it will bake the data valueless. I have given examples such as Shabani is in Zimbabwe, not Zambia and not in South Africa "https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:WHBV-DGPZ" and the title for this record is "South Africa, Netherdutch Reformed Church Registers (Pretoria Archive), 1838-1991" indicating they are South African. The people listed as Shabani are south Africans. Except for the legitimate Death Records and Death Notices, there were no Births, Baptisms or Marriages Recorded for Shabani that are on your system as far as I am aware. Pretoria is the Capitol City of South Africa, and is in the old Transvaal, there is no such place as "Pretoria, Mt Fletcher, Cape Province, South Africa" "https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:84KC-DDZM"
As I mentioned above ""Hope Town, Potgietersrus, Transvaal, South Africa" Hope Town is a town on its own. Potgietersrus is a town on it's own. They are in totally different locations in South Africa.
"Riversdale, Vereeniging, Transvaal, South Africa" Riversdale is in the Western Cape. Vereeniging is in the Transvaal."
But unfortunately if your only point here is to tell me I am wrong and you are right there is no point in me discussing it further and I give up, I can not correct records one at a time and as per your suggestions. Remember also what I have highlighted here is the tip of the iceberg.
Have a good day knowing you are right in correcting me that I am wrong about two countries I love and hold dearly and don't like to see being corrupted with incorrect information, no matter how right you are.
Regards.
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No one said you were wrong, Stewart. As a matter of fact, in my first message on March 7th, after no one else had responded to your post for many weeks, I said: "From other posts, I know that FamilySearch personnel (I am not one) are working on sorting out the messy details of place names for South Africa." This information came to me from other citizens of South Africa who have been consulting with the FamilySearch personnel on this problem with the place names. It is a big, vast problem, but, it is not because as you suggested that "The indexing system on the site is becoming a total shambles." My only concern was that you knew how we diligently index the information from the records and that they are aware of this problem with standardization of place names. I'm sorry if I offended you, but, I am not mistaken on how we index.
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Thanks.
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Hi Stewart. I have not been part of the above conversation, but I have a suggestion regarding your initial comment on not having the details of your original complaint included in the email reply you got from the help staff. I think that if you click on the question mark near the top of a page, and then click on “Contact Us” you should be able to scroll down on the resulting page and find “My Cases” or “Go to My Cases” where you should then find the details that were absent from the reply email you received.
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To all commenting on the appalling indexing of South African records, HEAR HEAR!
I am English, but lived for many years in SA. The utter frustration I feel when looking at records regarding SA ancestors. It is mind numbing the utter lack of understanding here. Recently found a sterfkennis [death notice] for an ancestor who died in Somerset, Cape Province - transcriber/indexer decided this would be Somerset, UK. The death notice was in AFRIKAANS, the indexer clearly does not understand the history of the country, and to have an Afrikaaner, in the 19th century, trekking to Somerset, UK is beyond belief. I too have stumbled across Hope Town, Potgietersrus on a marriage certificate. In my heart of hearts, I knew this was wrong but googled it just in case. Nowhere on the certificate does it mention Potgietersrus or the Transvaal. One to me!
What familysearch do here, from free, is MAGNIFICENT BUT please, please, please, there is a world outside of the USA - please enlarge your standardised places to include other countries correctly! Another bugbear is using modern place names for historical towns/cities. This appears a lot in the 'standardised' places. Again, in the 18/19 and up to latter 20th century, the province in which Pretoria is situated was Transvaal, not Gauteng - that came about in the 1990's. Doing this can send researches well along an incorrect path !
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I do agree with most of the above. I've spent many, many hours correcting incorrect South African records. And yes, they do need to be done one by one. Every time I see an incorrect one, I fix it, no matter what. Sometimes this leads to a whole afternoon of fixing mistakes. To some of the above commentators, are you actually Indexing as volunteers? If you are, I think you will be more aware of how difficult it can be. And yes it is utterly frustrating when you can see someone has tried to help but couldn't make out the Afrikaans names, so they just typed a string of letters, etc. Please join the South African Indexing Group on facebook, have the training, and become part of the solution. Thank you.
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Hello I just found this post regarding locations in South Africa I didn’t know about community posting. Thanks to everyone bring this issue to family search attention. Hopefully with in time all the incorrectly locations will be fixed I really recommend Family Search implementing Indexing ID # to everyone that chooses or Volunteers to indexed documents so that incorrectly locations or Afrikaans names that are totally botched ie Roteoorlede instead of Roets by the volunteer or people that just decided to assist get training by our very own Index trainer Hannie Nel there’s a large Indexing group for South Africa on Facebook Hannie will train anyone willing to indexed and pair a perfect up with someone so they have a partner.
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