It's official: Anglesey is in Staffordshire

[HughC]

Do I mean the Cadena?  I forget.  They do say it's the short-term memory that goes first, and this was no more than 45 years ago (yes, the '68 generation of revolting students).  Events before about 1880 are no problem.

[behindthefrogs]

Some time ago I worked for a government agency that had a Welsh Office.  They always answered the telephone in Welsh.  This frustrated one of my colleagues to such an extent that one day he decided to ask his question in  his native Polish lanuage.  However he was soon put in his place as the woman he was speaking to immediately answered his question in Polish.

[KGarrad]

My wife spent most of the first 4 years of her life in Germany (family in the Army!).

She had been working in Luxembourg, IT Help Desk & Support, for a few years, for a UK company.
Then the company "merged" with a German company.

In contrast to the Dutch, Austrian, Italian (etc.) people who phoned in, the Germans were reluctant to speak in English.
There was a lot of muttering on one phone call.

Ending the call, my wife pointed out that, although she couldn't talk in German, she recognised enough profanities and bad words, and that perhaps a more civil tongue would get a better response?!

[majm]

Well according to a commercial website with family history as its goal... Sydney in New South Wales WAS in the 19th century in AUSTRIA.....  I along with many others have regularly advised them that Sydney NSW is in AUSTRALIA but they seem reluctant to alter their database...  so I guess 'It's official Sydney NS Wales was in Austria BUT is now in Australia .... I blame climate change for the geographical movement from the Northern hemisphere to the Southern'

Cheers JM from NS Wales (as in how NSW BDM 19th C recorded New South Wales)

[HughC]

Yes, some people seem incapable of telling those two countries apart.  I vaguely remember a story a few years ago about someone hoping to hear the Vienna Boys' Choir while attending the Olympic Games in ... oh, some city in NS Wales, I think.

Is it global warming, or perhaps continental drift?  Oz really is moving north-east at the rate of a couple of centimetres a year.  Won't be long now before it collides with California.

Ancestry has such blind faith in its transcribers that it never corrects anything.  If you're lucky it may add what it's pleased to call an alternate (meaning alternative, which is not the same thing at all).  But the original version remains for all time, however obvious the idiocy.
Evidently recruits have to undergo rather drastic brain surgery before they can start work.

[majm]

I have also heard stories of people booking flights to Sydney NSW and discovering they were actually booked for Sydney Nova Scotia, but I doubt that can be laid at the feet of Ancestry.