Ancestry Transcriptions

[Antie Em]

Apart from every Widow or Widower being a Windower - this ranks up near to the top

In 1851 Ann Manns, aged 70 is living in Sedgley with her sister and brother in law

Ann was born in Bilston, Staffordshire and is Blind.

Ancestry has indexed her and being Born in Blind, Staffordshire

[Northern Lass]

[peterd]

urm thats not pc correct taking the micky out of the blind

[Antie Em]

urm thats not pc correct taking the micky out of the blind

How is that Pete - She is if fact blind. I don't think they were taking the mickey - I just think Ancestry didn't do enough research when they packed the census books off to India to be transcribed.

[MarkCDodd]

The transcriptions were actually done by the same people who do FamilySearch.

Some mistakes you wonder how they got past any sort of quality control.

[Antie Em]

I thought Family Search was done mostly in the USA. My cousin, who lives in Utah and is a member of the LDS church gets her whole family helping with transcriptions, that's when they're not travelling the world being missionaries and collecting the evidence from churches and local archives.

Dave Mayall, of Ancestry told me years ago that they were sending copies of the books to India to get them transcribed - this was where they could get them done really cheaply. I know you know the area around where I live and the area known as Londonderry in Oldbury. If you look at some of the census entries here, they have this as Londonderry in Ireland. Absolutely crackers.

[Lulu]

I've done some transcriptions for Ancestry! Last time I looked, I wasn't in India, although given the weather lately, possibly I am, as we are in the Monsoon Season here.

[Antie Em]

I've done some transcriptions for Ancestry! Last time I looked, I wasn't in India, although given the weather lately, possibly I am, as we are in the Monsoon Season here.

Was that the BMD's Lulu? I did some of those as a volunteer. I was told that the census, because they had to pay to have it done, went to India.

[Lulu]

I'm ashamed to admit, I can't now remember what it was that I did.

[snoopysue]

Had some of the 1911 Census where half the family on the image was missing, found them with some other family!!

[Antie Em]

Had some of the 1911 Census where half the family on the image was missing, found them with some other family!!

That's when they can't even get the Folio and Page numbers in the right order. Was one part of the family on the bottom of one sheet and the other half on the top of another?

I told Ancestry about this happening on a census about a year ago and they still haven't put it right.

[peterd]

been trying to get this change for about 10 years even offered to send them a copy of the original marriage cert its my granparents

EVANS Clara WATKINSON George 1931 Warrington, Civil Marriage Cheshire Warrington R/78/146

should be Watterson AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

[MarkCDodd]

I have had Ancestry do over 300 corrections in a couple of years without a problem.

Their BMD was done by freeBMD as is by far the least accurate but then again they had it three years before Find My Past!!!

Ancestry's 1911 census is far more accurate than Find My Past and was done by The Genealogist, whose other census are are also the best.

All of them make mistakes but you just have to look at the quality of the photographs they are working from to see why.

That is why The Genealogist has always been the most accurate for both Census and BDM. They paid a lot more money for better quality photographs of the original documents.

They use more expensive and slower photographic techniques and higher resolution.

For instance, their 1911 census photographs, and therefore Ancestry's, are more than twice the resolution of Find My Past and have much better contrast.

[Antie Em]

I agree Mark. Since I've been adding for BCC, I send in at least ten amendments a week. They don't change their indexes, they just add it as an alternative. The one I was asking them to change was the sequence of page numbers.

Here is an e mail I sent them ages ago, I have since sent them two reminders :

"1871 Census for Kingswinford, Staffordshire

I have just been looking through the above census here :

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/ss ... &h=2639726

William Harby has been indexed as the Head of the Family. This is wrongly indexed.

Thomas Capewell is the head of the family, but the pages have been mixed up.
You will find Thomas Capewell here :

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/Browse/vie ... Harby&cr=1
Schedule No 23

The next page which contains William Harby at the bottom starts at Scheule No 27
And the next page which contains the rest of Thomas Capewell's family starts at Schedule No 24 here :

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/Browse/vie ... Harby&cr=1"

After three e mails, it still remains the same"

[Antie Em]

been trying to get this change for about 10 years even offered to send them a copy of the original marriage cert its my granparents

EVANS Clara WATKINSON George 1931 Warrington, Civil Marriage Cheshire Warrington R/78/146

should be Watterson AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

They won't alter it Pete - but you can leave a Postem (alteration) if you go through FreeBMD. I know it's part of the same organation, but it is still run separately, with volunteers adding the information. When I used to be a volunteer years ago, the information was checked after it was entered and if a mistake was found, sent back to the volunteer for alteration. If the person who entered it (you can see this in the "info" symbol against the entry) is no longer a volunteer, then it's added as a postem.