1901 Leftovers: Should we correct transcription errors ??

[MaryA]

In Mary's case, I have her birth certificate confirming "Arlecdon Hill" as her birthplace in 1876.  And I've compared the data from all available censuses to make sure I'm looking at the same family each time.  The 1901 census was actually the easiest as I had documents from that period (my great-grandparents marriage for example).

But this is information that you have found over 100 years later, that you BELIEVE is her.  You may be 99.999 percent sure that it's her, but what if it wasn't .......

The information on the census return is what she herself gave to the enumerator, he wrote it down and this is what you see on the page and you read.  A transcription should be an exact copy only typed of what was on the page.  Its not for you to change it years later.  A change of any sort makes a nonsense of a census entry.   If you make a change you create something that wasn't there at the time that page was written, it means you are making up history to suit yourself.

This is the reason that sites such as FreeBMD and others have the "Type what you see" rule.

Mary

[ozchook]

Claremcg, 10,000 names! - you deserve a medal, or free chiropractic for the rest of your life. Irene

[Claremcg]

[quote ]
Claremcg, 10,000 names! - you deserve a medal, or free chiropractic for the rest of your life. Irene

Hi Irene

Thanks for that kind thought..... will ask my chiropracter and see what she thinks! <vbg>

And, actually, that was at the time of the changeover; there's a whole load more waiting to be sent up when I catch up with things.

Claremcg

[Berlin-Bob]

Type What You See, and NOT what you think you know. If you cannot read it, you leave a space.

Having re-read this thread, I now agree with Clare, but I'll also accept one or more ? for a space.

One point, however:

If the Enumerator wrote  Do. or do or " for ditto, then please fill in with the full details.

The reason for this is simple - when you see the names on an image, then you know what the ditto refers to. But if you are searching by name, and you don't have the previous entry in your search results, then you have no idea what the ditto refers to 

So to help others, this is one place where you fill in what the Enumerator meant, and not what he wrote !!

Bob

[Claremcg]

Hi Bob

Yes, you are quite right, and yes, I did do that when transcribing all those pages for Trudy, so you won't find any 'do's' or 'ditto's' in mine....

You get so used to doing it that you don't automatically think that others don't know what you know! So sorry, I should have said about how to deal with them.

Best wishes

Claremcg

Type What You See, and NOT what you think you know. If you cannot read it, you leave a space.

Having re-read this thread, I now agree with Clare, but I'll also accept one or more ? for a space.

One point, however:

If the Enumerator wrote  Do. or do or " for ditto, then please fill in with the full details.

The reason for this is simple - when you see the names on an image, then you know what the ditto refers to. But if you are searching by name, and you don't have the previous entry in your search results, then you have no idea what the ditto refers to 

So to help others, this is one place where you fill in what the Enumerator meant, and not what he wrote !!

Bob

[Mackiwi]

What if, all the details for a rellie are correct but the place of birth is on the next line down ?

Mackiwi

[Claremcg]

What if, all the details for a rellie are correct but the place of birth is on the next line down ?

Mackiwi

Hi

Yes, very annoying, but you still cannot alter it. I found one of my husband's possible rellies, listed as head of household and aged 14. Not impossible, you might say, but he was living with his mistress, it says he was married and he's a brewer's carter. He has a son aged 5 and a daughter aged 2. Now that is very precocious!
The enumerator SHOULD have written age '41' but I TWYS just the same, even though I knew it to be incorrect.

If you alter what you see and YOU know your family information to be correct how, then, will the rest of us know that what we see is the original information of that page?

We could all do it, as we type out the page, putting in that bit of info that we know but which is not what the enumerator put. WE might be getting that bit of info wrong as well!     Could be very misleading. So if you TWYS then its no-one's error but the original enumerator's.

Transcription errors, well... IF they are genuinely wrong, there must be some way of contacting the 1901 Leftovers site and asking for it to be corrected. On FreeBMD they allow a search of that particular page which the entry is on (the pair of spectacles you see beside the entry) and if you see something the volunteer missed, then you can put in a corrected entry notice, the website then contact the volunteer who then changes it and it is corrected on the website. I think I've done about 4 corrections in 18 months.
But they do ask for proof of where you saw the original entry.

Hope this helps a bit.

Best wishes

Claremcg

[Mackiwi]

Hi Claremcg

Thank you for that, it was the 1891 census and perhaps I will leave it and just add a note in my tree for future generations to decide what they think. I had checked everyone of that name and it was the only one that had the right birth place.

Mackiwi

[stewartgenes]

One ancestor that I found had been indexed wrong, I only found it was the correct one by a bit of lateral thinking and checking the other members I knew for sure would be with him, then I paid for the image which was correct. Transcription errors are bound to happen. Maybe the original errors could be left in but highlighted in some way and a note added by the person submitting the information. My reasoning is there will be generations coming after us and it may help them to know. Does that make sense?