Errors but can't edit.
I received an email about new record hints. It was my grandmother and mother. Lots of errors in the record, locations, a brother my mother doesn't have, and my husband is listed as a female. Who adds this stuff? Why is it so terribly wrong?
"United States, Obituary Records, 2014-2023", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XM8Z-N5D7 : Fri Nov 22 06:40:19 UTC 2024), Entry for Arlene Cora McKay and Willoughby Gates, 27 December 2021.
Comments
-
Obituaries are, for the most part, indexed by OCR, and the computer doesn't always get it quite right. My father was indexed with 3 wives, none of them my mother.
Often, there will be the option to report the error, but this record set doesn't have that button.
0 -
Thank you for the reply. I can understand my husband being listed as female because of his first name. The location was changed to america, and a brother named "Amp". I understand I'm probably a little sensitive when I see our location as america, we're Canadian. I'm not willing to add more information as long as there's big errors.
0 -
Please don't shy away from the FamilySearch tree because of an automated indexing error on one obituary.
The obituary is a record; it's not the tree. What you add to the tree will be as accurate as you can make it.
1 -
@MaryMcKay7 If you go to the information about this particular collection, it will answer your question of "Who adds this stuff?" See: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XM8Z-N5D7 and https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/United_States,Obituary_Records-_FamilySearch_Historical_Records
In this case, the indexing was done by Domega, Inc., whoever they are. Since this was an outside company of some sort, FamilySearch probably has no ability to do anything about the index. I've never heard of them before and the only Domega I can find bills itself as a "data aggregator" so if that is the right one, they are not even a genealogy company and may not be all that concerned with the genealogical accuracy of what they are aggregating.
This is a good example of a concept that other have stated here: "An index is not a source or a record. It is only a finding tool to locate a source or record."
What amazes me is that an indexed entry can be quite mangled but FamilySearch's hinting and searching routines can still pull out enough clues to find it and associate it with the correct person in Family Tree.
With this particular index entry, you can still attach it to the correct people and then in the resulting source make use of the Notes field to mention all the errors in the index. And best of all, the full text of the obituary is right there so one can ignore all the indexed information and just read the actual source. (At lease I hope you can see the transcript of the obituary. It doesn't appear to have limited access.)
One thing that I find a bit perplexing is that if you go to actual image for this record at: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-X77P-W39M-Q?view=index&personArk=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AXM8Z-N5D7&action=view&lang=en&groupId=
It does appear that you can edit the index information even though the Edit button on the indexed record is greyed out. You might try that out and see if you can get the index corrected.
2 -
Thank you very much for all this information, it is greatly appreciated. I never would have figured it out, I was getting frustrated, felt like I was going around in circles!!
I will definitely check the links you provided and see if I can correct some stuff. I can probably dig up some official documents to support my changes. I'll have to look around and reorganize my stuff.
Thanks again
Mary
0 -
@MaryMcKay7 Mary, would you consider your question being answered?
1 -
Yes, definitely answered and helpful. I was able to edit the information.
0
