How to report a systematic indexing error (year wrong on about 37 English marriage records)
I noted two different years (1881 and 1885) for the marriage record of Edward Llewellyn Price (GKXF-BTH) and Ellen Rosa Bromley (9F6Q-YCW). The birth of their children was more consistent with the 1881 year. The image was available for the 1885 record (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:7222-3N2M), in which the "5" in 1885 looked more like a weird "1". Indeed, pages 359 through 378 of the source have about 37 marriage records tucked between 1880 and 1882 and all have the weird "1" in 1881 that appears to have been incorrectly indexed as 1885. I think this affects about 37 marriage records. Unfortunately, I was unable to edit these (grayed out edit button), and I don't know the proper way of reporting such systematic indexing errors.
Answers
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That record set appears to be newly added. https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/3155854
I wonder - no specific knowledge - if it may have been indexed using the relatively new option of handwriting OCR. The handwriting OCR has some difficulty reading non-standard forms, especially numerals.
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I think that is very possible. It's just too bad there are no instructions on how to report this type of error, so the data could be corrected.
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I've been told, in the past, that reindexing for a record set is unlikely. On the other hand, when/if user edit becomes available on that collection, anyone will be able to submit a correction. I do it almost daily on records I view and attach.
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I've seen that type of "1" before and it's definitely disconcerting. If you can find a 5 close by (like the entry below!), then the difference is clear. But I can't work out quite how his pen went - it must have touched down near the top, completed the stroke to get to the top of the "1", and then come down. The result is a "1" with a serif to it - exactly like the "1" in this post as I'm typing - your image may vary if you've got a different typeface, of course. And pretty much like the way they are supposed to write a "1" in Mainland Europe.
But then the pen seems to bend the line again for no good reason...
By the way, it's right in FindMyPast, which I assume would have been the source of Welsh parish registers. That would suggest FS compiled their own index, which appears to exclude the major reason for not being able to index it - i.e. it's from someone else... Confused I am, unless, as @Áine Ní Donnghaile suggests, it's something to do with the indexing tech...
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Generally, the collection landing page indicates if Find My Past created the index with the term "Index Courtesy of." In fact, that's why I checked the landing page, to look for that info. It's not there.
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@Áine Ní Donnghaile - indeed - I'd also checked that at some point but wondered if the presence or absence of the error might act as a cross-check, just in case FS hadn't got their description right (surely not! 😉 ). But yes, in theory, you're absolutely right and it's a valuable thing to know.
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Notice I said "generally." 😎 We may never know with certainty; we can guess all day long.
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