General Chat

Anyone know how accurate FmyP is? it's just that I've given someone info that I found on the above site (and believe it to be right) and they're querying it?


ShelleyRose x

It depends what you mean by "how accurate". As with any site there will be mistakes made when the records were compiled and even more mistakes when they were transcribed. The people who do the work are only human so there are bound to be some inaccuracies but hopefully not too many.

It really depends on what records you are looking at and how accurate your own information is.

Kath. x

I haven't used it much - but any of of the various indexed sources can have mistakes in transcribing handwriting! I would have thought it much less likely - but not impossible - in transcribing printed records as well

Kath and Elizabeth,
Thanks for your replies, I'm looking at marriage records mid 1960's and birth records early 1970's.
One marriage is of a 15 year old? which makes me think it may perhaps be wrongly transcribed?

ShelleyRose x

The marriage records do not give ages of the couple marrying so I'm not sure exactly what you mean.

Are you saying that you THINK the person marrying was only 15 or that the record states this?

Kath. x

Hi Kath,
Yes your right the marriage records don't give the ages, I found the year of birth (if it's right)? then found the marriage for that person, and yes I think he was only 15 when he married (if that's possible in this country)?

ShelleyRose x

If you are looking at English marriages then a marriage in the 1960's would not be possible at age 15. Perhaps the marriage was of someone else with the same name.

If you want to send a private message giving details of the person whose birth and marriage you were looking for I will have a look and see what I can find - although it may now be tomorrow as I'll have to go to bed soon.

Kath. x

I think with any records, to be sure you need to look at the original as well as the transcription. On FMP there is facility to report errors.


I was going to rabbit on about the types of errors I have found and made tracking people very hard but...instead, yes there are a lot of errors.


makes the find so much better when you work it out
Yvettex

Its all well and good reporting errors to FMP, but when they reply thanking you but still do nothing about it....I wonder why I bothered.

This was a 1911 census where the person I was looking for was on the image but not the transcription...so she is still no where to be found

jax

lol, yes still lots of errors

I agree Jax, I've reported several errors to FMP over the past few weeks. They've replied agreeing and thanking me, saying they will be corrected within 20 days, but they haven't been.

Can anyone tell me if you can report errors on Ancestry. I have found several, but cannot see anywhere to report them.

Ancestry - you add a comment on the profile page of any individual, and I think the owner of that tree will be notified. Only yesterday I did this for someone whose children had somehow been credited twice to each of two wives - I had an email back by return from the tree owner that he had amended this , I had a reply and he then replied again to me. Mind sometimes you do this and there is no reaction at all, just like some of the GR messages!

I have reported mis-transcriptions to Ancestry in the past and had them acknowledged, but I can't remember how I did it!

Depending on the type of record on Ancestry, you can either report an incorrect name transcription which is eventually added but in italics. Don't think the correct name is searchable but does show when you get the list of possibles up.

Or if you can't work out which button to use, there is usually a 'comment' button on the left of the transcription. That would show up if anyone looks at the transcription.

Confused? You will be - lol

The original entries are just that - the original entries....! Whether it be a census or BMD it is as good as the information provided at the time it was recorded.

However, where errors are more likely to occur is when they are transcribed to create the searchable indexes. When you are talking about millions and millions of records, even a 0.1% error amounts to thousands of wrong entries.

Also bear in mind that even though the underlying records are identical, the search indexes for one site, say Ancestry are not the same as those for say FMP. Even the two FMP 1911 offerings use different search engines and indexes so it possible to find something on one site, but not on another.

I regularly report transcription errors on Ancestry, both for the census and the BMD's They are usually acted on promptly. Free BMD are also very good but take much longer as I read somewhere that they refer back to the original transcriber. I can't speak for FMP as I don't subscribe.

Another important tip is to always look at the original, where you can, don't rely on the transcription.

Wendy, I was distracted and sent you a message back by p.m. forgetting I was looking at a thread.

Last year Ancestry corrected a mistaken name -Iaac- to Jane, which was about a fortnight after I reported it, It may have been sooner as I don't go on very often.

Beat wishes

Sylvia C.

Thank you all so much for your replies, it looks quite possible that FmyP have an made an error in their info, but I'm going to take up Kath's kind offer and see what info she comes up with.
Thanks again everyone,

ShelleyRose x

Thanks Sylvia for your message. I do think Ancestry is confusing in this respect - it's so simple to do on FMP. Most of my reports of mistranscriptions have been my own ancestors and I have known them to be wrong, but I always check the original first, as IGP suggests. In one case, the unusual first name of Ovid was understandably mistranscribed as David, but I knew it was Ovid. laac for Jane was a strange one though, Sylvia!

Let us know what turns up, but I am a bit sceptical as to how FMP might have made a 'mistake'.

The error that might have happened is that the FTM transcriber has mis-transcribed either the name or the GRO reference. Mistakes in transcribing the year and qtr are virtually unheard of, mainly because each page is transcribed in one go, so if one name was wrong, the the entire page is likely to be wrong too.

Have you looked at the images as I suggested?

More likely that the birth and marriage entries relate to two different people, but the only way to prove or disprove would be to order both the certs.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my query.

IGP. It looks as though Ancestry and FMP have the same info. I did check the images as suggested, and I think the only way to solve this is to buy the certs.
Many thanks again to everyone for there help.

ShelleyRose x

I have recently taken a 6 month sub to FMP and am currently going through all the censuses. Some errors in transcriptions are due to poor quality of the original image. The 1841 census on which I found my gt gt grandparents with my gt grandmother and her sister was difficult to read on the film, but I managed to work out that it was 'my' Backhouse family. However, the transcription has them called Burkhouse. I sent in a correction, havent checked if it has been fixed yet. Another was a transcription for the 1851 census in Salford. The originals were, I understand, severely damaged but a fam. hist. soc. transcribed many of the pages by using ultra violet light and who knows what else. They transcribed the youngest daughter of my Slater family as 'Mart' when I know she was Maria. I was also able to add to the info on the mothers p.o.b. which is given merely as ?on? when it was Dilhorne.

Huia.