another Ancestry transcription cracker!

[eagleye]

Wow, thanks Betty.  Off to check it all right now!

[Lancsliz]

I was looking through the census for the Chapman family when just by chance I saw Anny Chapman - Boy! but when I looked at the original it was the person I was looking for Harry.
I also have the Beaumont surname in my tree called Beamont, I always check the original now just to be sure.

[Jean McGurn]

I think one of the commonest mistakes made by transcribers is the old fashioned way the letter r is written as when joined up with other letters will look like the letter n.

I have  recollections of when I was a child in the late 1940's using a lined writing book. It had lines on it that looked a bit like music lines.

I was made to spend hours practising writing the letters of the alphabet  and the letter r that was used in the 19c was exactly like the one shown on Pauls census example.

Jean

 

[lesleyhannah]

I think the message that's coming across is that there's no substitute for local knowledge!

My favourite enumerator's mistake was to put  the birthplace of my Northants family as St Joyles. Their accent probably made St Giles sound like that - and presumably the enumerator wasn't from that area.  But if the enumerators on the spot couldn't get it right, how on earth can people on the other side of the world manage?

As a matter of interest, who is transcribing the 1911 census?