1901 Leftovers: Should we correct transcription errors ??

[netgrrl79]

I get people who automatically put Katy without bothering to ask... 

KatIE (lol... ought to be KatFirefox  )

[Lesleysearcher]

Today I had to pt in a note on my own marriage record on Ancestory as I nearly did not find it as they had it in Malton Yorkshire instead of Halton Cheshire, 5 other family marriages in Halton were also mis trancribed as Malton.
I have also done a lot of corrections for poor trancriptions on Find my past this week and they are very quick to check comments and get back to you the corrections can take up to 90 days according to their e mail.

[dionysus]

It seems to me that there are errors of fact and of transcription.

In the first the person completing the census form has been misinformed, making a genuine error, but these should not be corrected, otherwise the integrity of the raw data would be threatened and we would quite quickly beome unsure of whether the information is fact or opinion.

In the second, where someone has simply misread the sometimes very difficult handwriting, this should be corrected as it is merely clarifying what was actually written.  Looking for a realtively simple and commonplace name such as Dennis can be frustrating when it has been transcribed as Dennes, Denner and even Damos!

[carol8353]

I totally agree with you Dionysus,I had trouble searching for an ancestor whose name was Fred (Frederick) it clearly said that,but had been mistranscribed as FROG 

Possibly a case of a drop down list of names.................ermmm maybe not!

Carol

[Bill749]

I have never found out what errors were made with my family on the 1881 census as produced by the LDS - from the microfilm copies in the local library I know they were all here in Dover, but many of them have simply disappeared from the transcriptions they issued on CD!

As I have all the details from the "original" I can't be bothered to do long-winded searches to find out how they were transcribed.

Bill

[robbo43]

Transcription errors on things like Ancestry, FreeBMD etc should be corrected.  They are someone's impression of what was written on the original, if that interpretation can be shown to be wrong it should not stand, although the fact of change should be recorded. This is simply a stage in correcting and improving the transcription.

Factual errors, where the name or other information is wrong on the original should be transcribed as such but with a note of the error, if and when this comes to light, to help following researchers. Many of my late 18th c Davey ancestors were literate, or at least could write their name, it was always written by them as Davey, but when written by parish clerks or clergymen etc is always given (wrongly) as Davy. Davy should be the transcription but I always note that the family used Davey in my records (and some sites will allow this sort of information to be added).

Robert

[Treetotal]

I would always advise where an error has been made that it should be corrected were there is no doubt a transcription error has occured...The transcribers do a magnifience job when you consider how difficult some of the pages are to decipher.
I spent almost a year looking for my rellie who according to the 1901 census was born in Alford, Lincs....I found her in Salford, Lancs. after purchasing a certificate...For the most part... get their in the end....somtimes it's just a question of thinking outside the box
Carol

[Mavals]

Many years ago I found what I thought was a LDS  transcribing error. A relative was described as "son of ", whereas the child was a girl (who subsequently went on to have 6 children of her own child). Although I tried to correct the error, I got nowhere.

Several years later, when I had the opportunity to see the register, the child was indeed recorded as " son of". Perhaps the curate took too much liquid refreshment???

Not all errors down to poor transcribing or optical recognition software inadequacies.

[LizzieW]

I found something similar in a parish record whilst looking for my ancestors.  It was a baptism of a child who died soon afterwards and had a correction saying that (can't remember the exact names now, I have notes somewhere) Robert Smith baptised on xxx, is not a boy but a girl and his name has been changed to Eliza Smith.

Lizzie