RootsChat.Com
Census Lookups General Lookups => Census and Resource Discussion => Topic started by: glesgaguy2 on Friday 04 December 09 15:39 GMT (UK)
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Just in case users are unaware, I have found that the Ancestry searches can be unreliable.
I was confused when searching for a Joseph Webb on the 1841 census when I couldn't find him, I knew he was on it as I found him on the Scotlandspeople site.
When I searched for the other names at the address I found that he had been listed as Joseph Streb.
I find this very sloppy on behalf of the Ancestry people, afterall they are charging for the information, the least they can do is make sure it's correct.
How many users hit "brick walls" just because the information is incorrect.
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unfortunately the scotland censuses on ancestry are riddled with mistakes
and as we cannot see the original images on ancestry we have no way of knowing what is right and what has been mistranscribed
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One of my families had been included in the family of their neighbours making a total of about 24 people all with the same surname. No wonder I coudn't find them. I can't actually remember how I did find them but I put in an amendment to Ancestry
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Welcome to Rootschat Glesgaguy
You may not have used the Rootschat Search facility yet, but there have been many discussions over the years regarding Ancestry and its foibles.
Also some interesting insights from Gadget regarding transcribing.
The transcibers are not necessarily "Ancestry people" but ordinary folk who give their time,to helping us all, as on FreeBMD etc. and of course sometimes mistakes are made.
Spring
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Welcome to Rootschat Glesgaguy
You may not have used the Rootschat Search facility yet, but there have been many discussions over the years regarding Ancestry and its foibles.
Also some interesting insights from Gadget regarding transcribing.
The transcibers are not necessarily "Ancestry people" but ordinary folk who give their time,to helping us all, as on FreeBMD etc. and of course sometimes mistakes are made.
Spring
No, I didn't think to do a search on this topic (I will do so now), also I didn't realise that documents were transcribed by "ordinary folk" so to an extent can be forgiven.. ::)
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Surely you can,gles,
we know how frustrating it can be to search madly (and then a savvy RC member finds it for you!) and lets face it, some entries are just downright sloppy!
Anyway enjoy the hunt!
Spring
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some entries are just downright sloppy!
Just an example ... the handwriting of Frank Francis, enumerator in Lincolnshire in 1901 ::)
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Say WHAT?!?
:D
I once volunteered as a transcriber - took one look at the script and fled!!
;D ;D
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Yes , that's a big difficulty, but then you take into account the conditions they struggled under.
Perhaps the only person for that area who was qualified, working by candle/gas light, and having to guess how a name is spelled.
Then a transcriber comes along ..and attempts to make sense of the returns...
I cetainly wouldn't like the task of transcribing the BMD records on Ancestry from the 16th Century on.
Must have been a thankless job, and probably still is.
Spring
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:P I have been led to believe that Ancestry's transcriptions were the result of photo imageing software used by Ancestry rather than "real people" transcribing. Which in my head explained all the very many messy transcriptions, too obviously without any sense.
Was I wrong to think that all these years?!
Monica
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Monica
As far as I know you are correct, on another forum it has been mentioned often that they use OCR, which is highly problematic in its interpretation of what it reads.
Stewie
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Thanks Stewie :) That was my understanding.
Monica
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Monica
As far as I know you are correct, on another forum it has been mentioned often that they use OCR, which is highly problematic in its interpretation of what it reads.
Stewie
They don't use OCR on handwritten text - only printed text, and even then it's unreliable. Anyone who thinks transcription of records is easy should become an Ancestry World Archives Project volunteer keyer. Even some typewritten records are hard to read, either because the typewriter was dirty, or the photographing of the record was badly exposed, or a combination of both. Handwriting can be a nightmare.
On Ancestry there is a facility for suggesting transcription errors, which will be entered into the database for searches in the future.
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I don't think transcription explains a missing ancestor over many census. All the census can't have been as badly written as Tati's example.
Lizzie
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It can in cases of surnames that are often mis-read (i.e. they look like more common names). My grandmother's name was Hole, which was often as not mis-transcribed as Hale. It's quite easy to look at a record and wonder why transcribers always got it wrong, but you are looking for the name (you already know it), but transcribers aren't.
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I'd heard that they sent some of the census transcribing to be done in countries where English is not even their first language.So they literally did type what they thought they saw.And not every well at that ::)
Carol
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Hello all, My Grandfather's surname was "KING" but had been mis-transcribed as "HING." I had never found him in 1871 but some keen eyed Rootschatters did!!! Hooray for Rootschatters! ;D Pat
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What happens now on new Ancestry projects is that each piece of paper is transcribed independently by two volunteer keyers. Their results are then sent to an arbitrator, who will decide which is right, if the transcriptions are different. If a keyer is found to be wrong, that knocks off a point from their accuracy rating. Keyers with high accuracy scores are invited to become arbitrators. So, if you see what you think you have seen a mistake in the latest Ancestry offerings, that mistake has been made by at least two people, if not three. And it does happen - I was looking at a new release of postcards on Ancestry recently, and I noticed one or two "howlers".