New English Records Added in December
Here is the list of the English records that have been added to FamilySearch during the last month:
England, Herefordshire Bishop's Transcripts 1583-1898
England, Kent, Canterbury Parish Registers 1538-1986
England, Lancashire Non-Conformist Church Records 1647-1996
England, Middlesex Parish Registers 1539-1988
England, Northumberland Non-Conformist Church Records 1613-1920
If you'd like to read the blog regarding all newly added records, click below.
Hopefully something here will be useful for your research. I can't wait to check the newly added Lancashire records for my family 😊
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If you have a general interest in records for the north-east of England, I would advise examining the records contained in "England, Northumberland Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1920", via the last link in the list above. The collection also includes records for the established (Anglican) Church of England, for both the counties of Northumberland and Durham - and possibly non-conformist records for Durham, too.
It is a shame there appears to be no intention of changing the collection title to one that reflects its true contents, as it has only been "by accident" that I have found records of my ancestors that (from its title) you would not think would be within the scope of this collection.
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You really do need to keep a broad mind when finding indexed records. Whilst searching from within the "England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988" collection I immediately found a record that had been indexed for "Christ Church, East Stour, Dorset", which I have changed to the correct place of "Christ Church, Spitalfields, Middlesex".
When standardizing a place "goes wrong", again it can mean records are more difficult to find. Had I been making a general search for this record (i.e., not within the Middlesex collection, but at https://www.familysearch.org/search/) I would have discounted it as being the burial of a Thmas Carter who was buried in Dorset.
Below from film number 008041372 - indexed as part of the "England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988" collection.
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Sorry, but still another error found! The title of another collection (shown above) is again very misleading. It is titled "England, Kent, Canterbury Parish Registers, 1538-1986", which implies it relates to entries from registers from parishes in (the city of) Canterbury, Kent - whereas its records appear to cover the whole county. Perhaps "Canterbury" is meant to refer to a diocese, or other jurisdiction which contains that name, but this should be made clearer, nonetheless.
Unfortunately, reporting such issues does not seem to lead to any action - as found in the response I received in reporting the error in the title of the Northumberland collection. This is a real disappointment, as it can lead to sources for ones ancestors being completely overlooked when searching on the website. They are often there, and can provide vital evidence for our ancestors' identities - so please make them easier to find (primarily, by indexing both parish names and collection titles accurately).
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I really am sorry in appearing to be so negative in my remarks here, but here is yet another poor piece of indexing relating to the Lancashire collection (above). The screenshot clearly shows a Westmorland baptism, but this record has been indexed as part of the records for another county.
Checking the film number (007561885) shows it contains records relating to a number of counties, but this does not mean they should have all been indexed as if all related to Lancashire.
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I just realised the only one of the above collections I had not checked out was the Herefordshire one. I wonder what other users can make of the place where the event actually took place: was it "Weobly, Herefordshire", "Little Wenlock, Shropshire" or "Wentnor, Shropshire"?
It has taken me just a few mintes to find each of these confusing / incorrect pieces of indexing. There seems there should be great cause of concern about the current standard of FamilySearch indexing. What is happening here?
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In summary, I'm not blaming any hard-working indexers involved with these projects, but there do seem to be serious project management issues here - at "both ends" of the process. Material is being indexed within the wrong collection (sometimes just because it appears on the same microfilm) and being titled incorrectly, regardless of the content. Standardization of placenames is going seriously awry, too.
But how to report this - well, at least so someone "in management" can be made aware?
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The last case you cite is an interesting one. There is a link to John Smith in Shropshire records. Clicking this brings up a record of a baptism of a John Smith on the same date with the same parents but in Pontesbury, Shropshire. Pontesbury is in the diocese of Hereford which would explain why the baptism is in the Hereford bishops transcripts. But Pontesbury is nowhere close to either Little Wenlock or Wentnor. I am guessing that these two were attempts to make sense of "Weobly". Looking at parishes geographically close to Pontesbury, the only ones that are remotely close to Weobly are Habberley or Westbury.
I then tried a search for Weobly without names or dates. The long list of results did not list Weobly in the table display but drilling into individual records shows the same distribution of place names as for John Smith.
I looked for another with a similar record and found the burial of Benjamin Dawes in 1847 with a matching record in Pontesbury.
More generally I agree that this is of considerable concern. From your other comments, it seems that this is not an isolated case. Clearly it is taking place above the level of normal volunteer indexing. When indexing a batch of names, the parish name is normally already in place. I will do my best to escalate the issue.
Regards
Graham Buckell
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Thank you for showing an interest in this matter.
Incidentally, of the "old" counties of England, Herefordshire and Worcestershire are the only two I have never visited, or at least "passed through", so I am completely ignorant of the geography / placenames of these counties!
As explained, I did not have to dig very deep to find the examples mentioned - I just tried searching on common names like "John Smith", "John Brown" and "John Wilson", knowing I would get some results returned that I could check-out.
The "England, Northumberland Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1920" collection is one I refer to regularly, being a main area of research on my paternal lines. This is how I found (and have reported) records for C of E churches in County Durham being included in a collection that claims to cover just Northumberland N/C records.
Thanks again
Paul
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