Genealogy Chat

Oh! and by the way Kate, my response to yours is in no way intended to be personal. I'm sure the necessary restrictions placed on you as a transcriber must sometimes chafe if you are required to repeat verbatim some sort of error, word or whatever that is clearly nonsense and not have the opportunity to include, somewhere at least, your certain knowledge as to what was actually meant...J

Jess, are you trying to make some sort of more personal observation out of this?....J.

You said it TED! Though it all puts me in mind of the 'newest' XP software system introduced by Microsoft a few years ago. It's so riddled with errors that they couldn't be bothered to find and correct that they instituted a 'Report' system by which the users of XP have slowly debugged the system as they've experienced the results of the errors in it!!!! I don't mind debugging transcriptions as long as the system to do it is obvious, easy to use and.......in place. And of course results in improvements. I find most of the mistakes amusing as well as annoying and it invariably inflates my ego to recognise the less obvious mistakes that only personal knowledge can identify. Don't try to tell me you lot don't feel this as well, 'cos I won't believe yer...J.

Yes Kate, the same comments I made about FreeCen, clearly apply to FreeBMD, run by the same people - and thank goodness for them. 'Transcribe what you see' is certainly what you have to do in the first instance; few transcribers, especially at the beginning, will have the required huge breadth of knowledge to match their enthusiasm, indeed who does? But then again, how will history view the enormous effort put in to repeat with utmost precision even the most obvious mistakes of the past....J.

Jude, hi. I tried transcribing one time, and only one time. When youve dont it once, you wont wanna do it again, not like sex. lol. Its so easy to make, not mistakes, but reading the names and the sometimes, no nearly always untidy handwriting, after all the enumerators used to get paid by the number of pages they filled and they were therefore worried about correct names and the quality of handwriting. I dont know how these people who transcribe on a regular basis do it, without them we wouldnt get the info. God bless them all. TED.

The only tools you need Jude are time, patience and imagination.

Jess - you're absolutely right of course; that has always been my attitude to getting any job done properly! What is left to be done on census and BMD transcription, however, is a minute fraction of that which has already been done and it is with the latter that these Boards concern themselves, where look-ups, 'fresh eyes', etc are a significant proportion of what goes on. My thoughts go out to those who don't have the experience or the tools with which to interpret what they find on a site for which they have paid for access to transcribed and 'original' images and which they might naively assume to be bona fide info. As we all know, there are so many stages at which original errors could be made and subsequently compounded. The fact that many of us know/assume that recent transcription work has been/is farmed out to the Indian sub-continent, resulting in errors that might be obvious to native British, is a reflection of our attitude to the importance of the protection and transmission of this information. As you no doubt understand, my question is simply this, why isn't the collected expertise, knowledge and goodwill of the people on these and similar boards acted upon by those holding the rights to and selling this heritage information?....J.

Hi Jude I have noticed that Ancestry do put up alternate names - eventually. I have used their system to notify them of names that I know are definitely mis-transcribed and after a period of time a little bubble appears alongside the incorrect entry. This is what they say :'Currently we can only accept submissions for alternate names. We will soon add fields for alternate places, dates, and more. For now, please enter ALTERNATE NAMES ONLY. Other information will NOT be searchable!' Also, as a transcriber for FreeBMD I know it is possible to contact the transcriber if an error is thought to have been made, but the transcriber needs to have made this possible by ticking the correct box etc on their profile. I would certainly be quite happy to check my entry and correct it if necessary if somebody contacted me but only if I am sure of their info. The instructions transcribers are given is to 'transcribe what you see'. So if someone says a name should be Smith, and they know this because the rest of the family was spelt this way, but the original page looks like Smithe - that is what I would type. Cheers Kate :)

Jude -sign up for transcribing - a good way to ensure that it is transcribed correctly is to do it yourself.

I'm sure this is an old moan but...when I check FreeCen for the latest additions to one of my surnames of particular interest I sometimes see updated information and previous incorrect or mistranscribed info in brackets for comparison/completeness. 1837online has a system for allowing one to point out errors, of which I have availed myself on a number of occasions and for which they are suitably grateful! The GR boards are a goldmine of corrected names, DoBs, PoBs, etc. for a variety of census, BMD transcriptions, usv. Is there any evidence that transcription sources are being changed/improved as a result of your efforts? And if not, why not? Why should people pay good money for subscriptions or to pay-per-view sites of which even the best continue to purvey known misinformation?...J.