Excuse me while I rant about....

[janescroft]

A thread for the funniest mistranscription isn't a bad idea madammagician. Fanina Oompler will take some beating 

Betty

Was her job listed in the census as being an exotic dancer?!!

[Simon G.]

I give up.

Yeah, I did that too this morning when I came across an Alfred Twyman on 1891 (who was actually a Finnis from THE NEXT HOUSE IN THE STREET, rather than that household).  They'd connected the wife in the next house (the head was AWOL...probably a fisherman) as James Twyman's wife...despite the fact he already had one in his own house! Someone at Ancestry is clearly incapable of:
a) Reading an address.
b) Working out that bigamy is illegal.

 

[KathMc]

Betty, I couldn't agree more. The worst is when you actually look at the census, and it is quite obvious what the name is.  My poor gg grandfather is on 7 census and only transcribed correctly once. I searched years for him.

Kath

[trish251]

I have been know to rant on about Ancestry as well, but I really don't think it  is so much worse than some of the others ( but I do have  a Daniel Farmilo who turned into David Sannell - found by Arranroots    ). Sometimes I think the enumerators have much to answer for & searching the records on ScotlandsPeople I seem to have to use alot of * to find the required entries.

I would really like it if the search modules could use the name features used by the LDS on their data base - e.g. search for Elizabeth and get all the possible variations - Betty, liz, lisa etc. They do similar with surnames & this helps immensely in the searching.

Trish

[Comosus]

Sometimes I try looking for a person on ancestry without putting anything in the surname - just using their first name and place of birth but it's only really helpful for those born in villages.  I found someone through this method whose surname was Sunderland but was mistranscribed as Fanderland!

Andrew

[suey]

You just need to be inventive, even using just the first name does not always work. So try the first three or four letters of the name and *

I found an Elizabeth under Elish on the image it is plainly Eliz'th

Suey

[BagpussBee]

I had Lillystones that turned into Sillystones!

[shellyesq]

I found one on Ancestry that had 3 question marks in lieu of the first three letters of the surname.  It took me a while to track that one down.  I only found it with the first name and the name of the town. 

[KathMc]

I often do that too Shelly, and I have been able to turn up many relatives. Doesn't work so much in the big cities when the relative is Mary  or some such  , but it's sometimes all we've got.

Kath