Genealogy Chat

Could I ask everyone who finds a mistranscribed name to make inform ancestry through the corrections tab. We read of so many on here each day and I do wonder if people bother to report them so that the next searcher wont have the same problems. It only takes a minute. :)

Dear Heather Posi

I inform them regularly, also the dreadful 1911 lot who should really now be paying ME to sort out their database instead of charging me to look at their crap.

Love

Margaret

Yes, I have now started to send corrections through to Ancestry when I am certain of my facts. When you do so there is a space to explain why you are sure the transcription is wrong. But when you find a note on Ancestry suggesting an alternative name, how do you view the comments added by the person who notified the mistranscription in the first place? I have just found one where I know that the original name as transcribed is in fact correct, and the suggested alternative is wrong (mother had remarried and child retained original surname, but someone suggest that she should have same new surname as mother). I would like to read the reasons they gave for suggesting the alternative - maybe they know something I don't!

Tina

Have to say Ive found one of those recently, concerning my GGF - I could scream about it as you cant actually contact the person who has put in the amendment can you. I can see what theyve done, they have confused my GGM Emily with the daughter Emily and then decided my GGF was married to the daughter -aaaagh

Go to Ancestry, Tina, and search for Wallace Liggs (it's the only one of mine I could think of off-hand). You should come up with a Wallace Liggs b. 1847 Wheldrake, Yorks, living in Thorney, Notts in 1871.

Click on the "1871 England Census bit", then you'll get "Wallace Liggs" in bold black type and underneath, in green, is "[Wallace Siggs]" with a little speech bubble next to it. Click on the green text and it should get you to Correction Details, and the correction details were put in by me, Kate Hurst.

Please report any errors you find on FreeBMD as well. I've had four accepted so far - wrong page numbers, wrong Christian name and the like.
Angela

If the 'correction' has a yellow triangle then you cannot contact the person making the correction.

If it is the speech bubble then follow Kate's instructions. When you get to the submitter's name you can click on it and send them a message.

There is nothing to stop anyone adding a correcion to correct a correction!!!!! If you get what I mean......I have done so and put in the notes my reasoning.

Chris

If a correction is made to a Surname on Ancestry, they seem to assume that it applies to everyone in the household. Those records are then marked with the yellow triangle.

I always try and add corrections to Ancestry, but only when I'm absolutely certain of may facts! I wouldn't want to make somebody's searching even more difficult than it sometimes already is.

What does annoy me are the people who change maiden names to married names and vice versa, not actually taking into account when the marriage took place.

Oh How I agree with Blossoms second sentence!
Does anyone know if you can amend place of birth yet. It took me years to find my grandfather as they had made him German when he was Guernsey?

Oops - I should have said on ancestry.

Please add The Genealogist website to the list too. I send emails on a daily basis and only get an automated response saying the records will be updated shortly with my correction. I still see the errors now 6 months later.
I transcribe for FreeBMD and have had to amend 3 records which isn't bad after a year!

Di

... and then there's the well known and frequently met 'windower'. Why doesn't Ancestry just to a global search and replace?

No, I don't think you can amend anything other than names yet. There are some real howlers when it comes to place names though.

I used not to send amends to mistranscibed names but I generally do so these days now I'm a bit more familiar with the site. And, I do add maiden names sometimes where a person is shown by their married name. I don't think it does any harm to do so but is helpful if someone has been looking for a particular person under their maiden name but then finds that at a later Census they are married.

Simon

I think the reason I started doing it, Simon, was that when looking for my Siggs, I had got so fed up of the mistranscriptions. It's such a rare name that I think the Siggs in my tree only turn up under that name in the census about 50% of the time. I used to wonder where the rest were but the more I hunted, the more I found that they were coming up as "Ligge" or "Liggs" or "Seggs" or "Tiggs" etc.

So I add notes to my family tree programme to document the times when the name is mistranscribed - it makes it so much easier to find them again later - and then send corrections to Ancestry.