Wrong indexing
What can I do as I get all the time wrong indexed people and places? Why cant people who index get the Scandinavian letters to use!!?? I am not Lonnroth but Lönrooth, Many were not born in hame (dres) but in Häme! She is not Kahara but Kähärä! I can not even correct. This should say And. the dot is impåortant as and is a duck... he is anders! Lönnroth not lanroth. Her name is not Klara Sofia Andersson but Andersdotter Lönnroth! He was a coppersmith and he got a last name! It was in Jyväskylä ... Jyväskylä is NOT in Vaasa (=westcoast) but in MIddle Finland, even Häme is in between. I seen this before and it is very confusing as in Vaasa area there may be a place called Jyväskylä. It is not Hel it is Hel. = Helena Cristersdtr. = Christersdotter What can I do to correct that?
Best Answers
-
I'm not familiar with the Scandinavian alphabets, but, in web-indexing when you click on the International Characters tool, there is an Å, Ø, Œ, Æ, Ä, Ö - etc. It is the second tool from the right (the letter ñ is used in the icon). There are 135 characters in that tool that can be accessed. Indexers should be able to use those without any trouble. Maybe it takes a little extra time to use the tool? I don't know because on a MAC holding down the key brings up all the international letters to chose from and I haven't used a PC for many years.
You can click on the link I gave in the first answer to see that batch and find the tool.
1 -
The FamilySearch research wiki has pages on transcription errors, phonetic writing errors, etc. for some languages. I have found them useful, as I have a Z– surname that can be written S– or Cz– or T– (phonetic spelling variants) but also G– and L– (handwriting transcription errors).
The Guild of One Name Studies defines surname variations as either variants or deviants; I have found that concept very helpful. https://one-name.org/variants-and-deviants/
Back to my pro tip... So many experienced genealogists come to Family Tree with experience working directly with historical records. We tend to underutilize Family Tree. Now that I have practice with FT I invert my usual process and start each new project by polishing the existing person pages (PIDs). We tend to think polishing is the last step, but because the FT hints tool works so much better on polished pages, I polish first.
2 -
Yes thank you... it is such wonderful that today we have all these things to help us!!
0
Answers
-
My first thought is that you could join us as a volunteer! The help is always appreciated!
After indexing 1000 records, you can become a reviewer. But, we do have to follow guidelines when indexing given and surnames. Generally that rule is to type what we see on a document. For instance, if a given name is abbreviated Hel, we do not correct that to indicate Helena. But, in some projects we might index Christdr as Christdatter IF the instructions allowed for that. When I started indexing in 2014, diacritics were not required in indexing since they don't affect a search. That could have been the time when your example was indexed (7 dec 2014 is in the citation).
Here is a link to a batch I downloaded from Norge—Tinglysningskort, 1640–1903 so you can get an idea of the instructions we follow and how indexing works. Project instructions can be accessed by clicking on the last icon on the toolbar. Additionally, we follow the field helps which are accessed by clicking on the question mark that appears when you click on a field. You cannot do anything to hurt or help this shared batch, so feel free to click around and examine the instructions that indexers and reviewers follow.
https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/batch/d8a59fff-ab18-42e1-a25e-bda3d3de341e
Here are a few of those project instructions regarding names and places:
- A patronymic name is a name derived from the name of a father or ancestor, typically by the addition of a prefix or suffix. Norwegian surnames were commonly formed in this way. For example, if a father's name was Anders, his daughter's surname would be Andersdatter. Often, however, Andersdatter may have been recorded or written as "Andersdr" or abbreviated in some other way. In this project, expand abbreviated surnames only if they are patronymic names. For example, if a name was recorded as "Andersdr," type Andersdatter in the Surname field.
- The name of the principal person was often indicated by a cross (†) symbol, which was often used to indicate the deceased in bygdebøker (Norwegian local history books).
- All other types of abbreviated names and place-names should be indexed as they were written on the document.
Here is a Finnish/Swedish language project that you can peruse. In the field helps for Village Name you will find the instruction:
"Type the name of the village, quarter, or block as it was written.
The village name was usually written in the first (or far left) column. Do not correct misspellings or expand abbreviations.
In web indexing, you can include punctuation when typing names and place-names; however, including punctuation is not required."
You will also notice that the surname instruction is to type as written. In this project there is no mention of using "datter" in place of dr. So, an indexer would type Anderdr.
https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/batch/9be22acb-a212-47d7-a1fd-1683e251d9d3
You can correct anything that is in blue on your example image by clicking on the name.
As for place names, you can suggest adding or correcting a place name by following these instructions:
Hope that helps to explain why you might not see the exact names and places as you wish from a volunteer indexer/reviewer's point of view!
P.S. I hope this doesn't get deleted. I spent 25 minutes on the explanation! I will hold onto these batches for a few days so they can be seen by anyone reading this post with interest. Thanks.
2 -
Actually I been some 5 years a FS tjeneste missionary so I know all that, all I do not know is how to change it to the correct! IF you use and. there has to be the . to show that it is shortened. It looks horrible and is horrible to read your gggg as Duck Lontoth or Lantroth! Also my families paceing was totally wrong. Jyväskylä is not in Vaasa.
I am indexing Norwegian gårdshistori books and have half of Norway to care for consults so I think I have enough to do, I know I could do that if I had time! I just want to change the ä, ö, æ, ø, å to where they should be.
Thank you for the effort though.
0 -
My apologies. Your post made it sound like you didn't know about indexing since you asked " Why cant people who index get the Scandinavian letters to use!!??" and titled this Wrong Indexing. We also don't use punctuation unless the project instructions tell us to do so. Indexing And. would be rare, just as Wm. or Jno. is rare.
At least now you have the instructions and link to work on the problem with place names. But, it won't help with people indexing the place names as they were written.
This probably won't help either, and perhaps you have read it and know about Legacy collections. I did not and learned something new today because of your post. I searched on Finland Baptisms 1657-1890 and learned about Legacy Collections. I originally thought you could click on the names, go to the original source, and edit them. I now see that the Edit is Unavailable and you can't get to the original source for editing. Maybe this wasn't even indexed by FamilySearch volunteers. Good luck! I hope someone else has a better answer to solve this problem.
https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Finland_Baptisms_-_FamilySearch_Historical_Records
1 -
We know that more and more editing options will become available over time. Right now they are limited but expanding!
Here is a link that might help you. https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-fix-indexing-or-transcription-errors-in-historical-records
I particularly noticed the first point. It asks that you add the correct name to the 'other' section of the person's page. Perhaps that might be a good suggestion for you?
"You can edit incorrectly indexed names, dates, and places on some record collections. Editable fields can vary based on the location and language of the user, and any restrictions associated with the collection.
When you submit corrections, please follow these guidelines:
- Avoid using this feature to add name variations, nicknames, or aliases. Instead, use the Other Information section of an ancestor's person page.
- Enter the information as you see it on the image. For example, if the image contains initials, enter the initials.
- Correct information in the image that is wrong. Select Wrong in the Document for your reason."
3 -
Perhaps a change in perspective will help?
I think you're outraged by incorrect indexing because you're seeing it as incorrect data.
However, indexes are not data. They're merely finding aids for data.
An index can help you find a record regardless of whether it says "And Lonnroth" or "And. Lönnroth", especially when the search engine ignores punctuation and diacritics anyway, the way FamilySearch does.
Weird indexing can make life interesting, but the moral of the story, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, is that you found the record anyway. Heck, I found a passenger list for a family named Meszlényi that had been indexed as "Merzeleyn". (The list was from 1853, when the given names were abbreviated to just initials, and half of those were indexed wrong, too.)
Be proud that you found your duck. :-)
4 -
Hello @Maija-Liisa Årsnes ,
Having done some indexing, I think the learning curve is steep and tall for someone not familiar with many surnames. One of my projects has at least 20 deviant spellings of a single surname. Most are transcription (that is, indexing) errors, not phonetic spelling by census enumerators. In some sets the surname is almost always correct, but in some other sets it is not.
Pro tip: polish your person pages (PIDs) as you go and let the FT hints tool do 90% of the searching for you. It is good at finding records despite the errors.
2 -
Thank you to you all. And I have to take back the Vaasa thing... in those days looks like Vaasa was all over middle Finland too. Sorry about that.
The thing about indexing that happens is that fex in my family there are some 5 kids. Now with the wrongly indexed Lastname there become 5 small family groups... all work done... 6 times each , mine added.
I really love the possibility you have in some documents where you can gå and color the wrong and set the correct suggestion there.
Indexing is really a place where you can learn about how difficult translation is and how the names can not always be written the "correct way" in order to pronounce them correctly. I have done enough indexing to know that the handwritings are horrible. But a native person can see maybe more than someone not speaking the language. But the Scandinavian letters should be possible to use for those indexing as they are written correctly in the books, but the person indexing cant use them even if he/she saw correct.
Julia actually I did find the records a very long time ago, but did not believe they were mine for all the differences...
0 -
"Five kids = five small family groups" happens in Family Tree even if the parents' names were indexed identically all five times. A previous FamilySearch system created those profiles, and it had no mechanism for combining them.
(Why those profiles were then imported into the current system, despite the thousands upon thousands of duplicates thus created, is a mystery that I have decided I don't need to understand. I just deal with the tedium of merging them, and am thankful that most of my relatives were unindexed Lutherans in Hungary. [Yes, unindexed means I can't search for them by name; I have to browse through images. However, it also means that there are no family twiglets to clean up.])
As an outside observer, it seems to me that LDS members have an especially hard time maintaining perspective about indexes versus data accuracy, because of the way FamilySearch -- and by extension, their church -- treats indexes as if they were primary data, enshrining index entries in Family Tree profiles that correspond verbatim with every indexing error. Somewhere in all that LDS stuff that I don't need or want to know about, there is at least one entry for a mythical mother that was created out of the father's religion and occupation. And I wonder how many of those Pater Ignotuses have made it through the process.
1 -
@Julia Szent-Györgyi I had never done a search on
Given Name: Pater
Surname: Ignotuses.
The results were very interesting.
1 -
Similarly, the names John Doe and Jane Doe are placeholder names in the United States. And in Family Tree right now there are 355 PIDs named Father Unknown and another 223 PIDs named Mother Unknown.
No worries! It is all a work in progress.
2 -
And NMN brings up a lot of records too (tens of millions of public records). It is fun to create unusual searches!
0 -
Indexer's are to index what they see, we don't embellish.
A good indexer reads the project instructions, field helps and knows the language being indexed, if they don't know it, they should use the wiki help articles for the particular language, if the aids don't help leave the project for someone more fluent in the language.
0 -
It is possible it is some older indexing if it does not use ä,æ,ö,ø,å I suppose. In some cases, the letters are so clear you can't do wrong... if you know something of the language.
Thank you.
1 -
Julia.
In answer to your question: -
"And I wonder how many of those Pater Ignotuses have made it through the process."
I decided to do a little search and found 8,475! That's an awful lot of Ignotuses, Ignato or similar. 😂
0
