Genealogy Chat

Maybe you haven't thought of this one. If you have a missing Thompson, I have recently found one transcribed as Thornton. Perhaps we can start a thread to show what we have found, and what they should be.

Voden mistranscribed as Roden. Brock ditto Brook. Dean ditto Scan. All clearly legible on the images, reported to 1901 and have been corrected. Joy

This thread should certainly attract attention! Sometimes the errors were at the enumerator stage, some at the going-online stage. Occupation "Lali Berth Steward" (1901) - believed to be "Sick Berth Steward" Names Christer (1901) Christopher (1891) - s.b. Christie Leanard (1901) - s.b. Leonard Jasan (1901) - s.b. Jason Cooks (1901) - s.b. Cocks I'll add the ones I've forgotten later! - I'm pretty sure there are more. Christine

I was missing a SAMPSON,and found him transcribed under THOMPSON on 1901 census Anna :-)

btw of course with the 1901 I certainly wouldn't blame the people transcribing. Wouldn't expect, for instance, people in Sri Lanka to be able to read it as I would. I blame Qinetic. Joy

Joy, Are you saying that people in Sri Lanka transcribed the 1901 census?! No wonder I can't find my relatives, they could be under anything!!! Sam

Censuses: 1871 Matthews mistranscribed Marthers 1891 Vine as Kine/Smoothy as Smithy 1901 Christian names: Jeuel as Denel Lemuel as Leonard Surnames: Smoothy as Lenorthey Matthews as Maththews Place names: Limpenhoe, Norfolk as Limperhal Cambridge as Camligger (surely transcribers should have access to a gazetteer!) nell

What Christine says is true - the mistranscription can appear at any stage in the process. Also it can depend on the instructions to the transcriber - should he/she write what he/she thinks it IS or what he/she thinks it SHOULD BE? Village names, to anyone apart from a local, can be very dodgy. And when was Hinckley in Liechtenstein?

Florence Senor Newton should be Florence Leonora Newton Took me ages to find her

Oh yes Jim! Avril for Agnes Lus for Louis Mabobiline for Madeline - same family - all on the 1881 census Boulet for Doutch then there are the ages! Maggie

Yes indeed, Sam! First by prisoners then by people in Sri Lanka. If you google search "who transcribed 1901 census?" you'll find a link to something by Dick Eastman, and this includes the following. Joy " ..... the quality of the indexes created by QinetiQ’s subcontractors. Those who have succeeded in accessing the database claim that the error rate is outrageous. The Federation of Family History Society’s website states "initially 85% of the transcribed data failed to meet the (unspecified) accuracy rate required." The 1901 UK Census was indexed and placed online by QinetiQ. That organization is a part of DERA, the British Government's "Defence Evaluation and Research Agency." QinetiQ is a wholly government-owned corporation, according to the website at: www.qinetiq.com. QinetiQ originally planned to have the indexes created by residents of the British prison system. However, eventually much of the indexing work was actually done in Sri Lanka. There is some disagreement as to how much of the indexing was done in that country. The PRO's own advisory council, with members drawn from the Society of Genealogists, the Federation of Family History Society, the Guild Of One Name Studies and others, reportedly was told that only a small percentage would be so transcribed and that these would be mostly the Welsh returns. Yet other documents state that 78 percent of the total indexing was done on the Indian sub-continent. Whatever the source, those who have used the 1901 online census during its brief availability claim that the error rate is much too high to be acceptable. It appears that those doing the transcription work often were unable to read the one-hundred-year-old handwriting. Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake queried his MP about this. Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury) then asked the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, pursuant to her answer of 20th March, Official Report, column 414W, on the 1901 census, what steps were taken to familiarize employees based in India and Sri Lanka with the handwriting and spelling used by enumerators of the 1901 census. Ms. Rosie Winterton, Parliamentary Secretary, responded: The data input company based in India and Sri Lanka demonstrated that it had in-house skills at interpreting late 19th century handwriting by producing test results of a very high level of accuracy prior to the award of the contract. In order to augment these skills, ten Public Record Office staff with expertise in interpreting census enumeration returns spent, between them, twenty weeks at the company's bases in India and Sri Lanka. They gave training sessions on the detailed transcription rules, on the formation of the handwriting to be found in the returns and on the etymology of Welsh place names. They also responded to queries raised by individual operators while they were transcribing the returns. Public Record Office staff ensured that keying operators had access to appropriate reference sources such as English and Welsh gazetteers and name listings. They also provided supervisors with detailed feedback on errors encountered during the quality assessment of the transcribed data to seek to prevent such errors re-occurring. The transcription rule for most of the data found in the 1901 census returns was to transcribe it exactly as it appeared. As a result, there was no requirement to translate 1901 spelling to its modern day equivalent. ... "

Joy, I can't believe that! I myself would not like to transcribe welsh records even though I don't live that far from Wales. Someone who has got no knowledge of the geography/place names and whose first language isn't English is surely goint to make major mistakes on the english census, never mind the welsh?! Sam

My thoughts exactly! Imagine struggling with Llanfairpwyllchwhatevergogogoch!

Indeed, and that is why family history societies, family historians and others were not happy about it at the time!!! and still aren't. Let's hope it's done better with the next census. As I said, I don't blame the transcribers! Joy

Let's face it, someone living in Sussex (or Surrey, they all claim ignorance of anywhere north of Watford when it suits them) is not going to do too well transcribing Yorkshire or Derbyshire villages. The only way to approach perfection is to let people transcribe their own families.

Not when I caught myself claiming a Worsfold as a Broomfield, Geoff! My Skillings have appeared at various times as Shilling Skillem Stullings Billings Rilley - this last, naturally from the 1901. And I fancy a trip to Mangola in Kent.

I have seen Christopher spelt as Xpopher, Xtopher and Xfer. And, of course, there are those damned Clerks who liked to show off their Latin so my poor old Bill Freeman appears in the baptismal register under the name of Guilielmus.

My lot were Williamson. 1841 On the 1851 Willeston. On the 1861 Wilkinson On the 1871 back to Williamson. So now i search for all of the above. Tony.

In one census my g g grandfather was born in ngatton In another he was rightly born in Yatton

With all that has been said before, surely census or BMDs will be more accurate when they are done by volunteers who are themselves genealogists and take a pride in getting things right. Same as anything else, as soon a money comes into it, it is rush rush rush and quantity take prescendence over quality.