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Indexes of Errors

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RJSamp	Indexes of Errors	Lead	[-]
Posts: 25 (04/09/04 04:28:24) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : None OK, I'm a big (literally) boy and apoligized for Elsass being the German spelling for Alsace. How about Mecklenburg-Schwerin (is that in Hinterpommern?)? The last name is DAUCK (tombstone, death certificate, family records, family bible, marriage certificate, obit, and newspaper article on the marriage. sorry don't have an engraved invitation). Name: Joseph DEUCK Age: 65 Estimated birth year: <1815> Birthplace: Wisconsin Occupation: Retired Relation: FatherL Home in 1880: Center, Outagamie, Wisconsin Marital status: Married Race: White Gender: Male Head of household: Frederick PINGLE Father's birthplace: MACKELBURG Mother's birthplace: MACKELBURG Image Source: Year: 1880; Census Place: Center, Outagamie, Wisconsin; Roll: T9_1440; Family History Film: 1255440; Page: 130A; Enumeration District: ; Image: . My question is: Where is Mackelburg? Since my biased brain looks at Mackelburg and I assume Mecklenburg-Schwerin in Northern Germany. and it LOOKS like Mecklenburg (or Mackelburg) in the copy of the microfilmed census I'm looking at....why wouldn't we either a) correct the index...or b) store a pointer to this record for Mecklenburg-Schwering as well.... so you could get to the record searching on the errors, Soundex, or Actually where they were from (Domsuhl (sorry don't know how to do the umlaut on the U), Crivitz, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Hinterpommern, Preussen.....which the Census states is 'Mackleburg') And is it Mechlenburg, and Mechlenberg as well? Or do we just continue to index what we know to be incorrect. IMHO we should index the original cursive scribblings.....but correct any errors that our OCR/transcribers have made. If you read an A as a U, and the OCR reader says it's a U......but I know that the U should be an A and it looks like an A to me.....why wouldn't we correct that? Who is Deuck? When you get hits in Wisconsin on the 1900 census for Dauck, and none for Deuck......isn't this an OCR error? RJ Samp
rottenralf	transcription errors should be corrected	#1	[-]
Posts: 142 (04/09/04 05:42:46) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	If the transcriber of the LDS census extract made an error (I believe a second person also rechecks the first persons work), then that should be corrected. Now as far as MACKELBURG is concerned, if that is the way the enumerator spelled, that is way it has to be indexed. Now as far as a pointer, that is where you run into trouble. You assumed it was Mecklenburg-Schwerin and I would assume it would be Mecklenberg, NC. You are probably correct because you know the background of this family. The indexer might not, and so might put the pointer as NC. That is why they don't do that, it's just too easy to make errors.
Unregistered(d)	Don't forget local dialect	#2	[-]
Posts: 0 (04/09/04 06:47:57) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	How it appears on the census ishow SHOULD appear on the LDS transcription. If it is wrong on the transcription, then let them know. Somebody at the Family History Department should be able to help you. But don't correct the census. That is not for us to do. You have so many things in play in the census that fixing any of them is going to mess with all of them. Enumerators were chosen because they could write in something that passed for English. Most had very little education, and what they had in the way in language skills was based mostly on phonetics. This is why some of my people ended up being born in "Ioway". I couple of my family were dutifully raped in the census and other records. Criminal? Not at all. It is part of the hunt. But why stop with the census? You can go around and fix the spelling in the tax dockets, probate and land records. You could fix all sorts of things. And while your at it, we can empty all of the graveyards and redispurse the bodies so that everybody from all of your lines is all buried in one cemetery together. A nice tidy package. And genealogy would be 100% boring forever more.
RJSamp	Agree.	#3	[-]
Posts: 25 (04/15/04 09:59:27) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The local census must be indexed errors and all. And that's fine. But Databases can have supplemental pointers (foreign keys) that point at the same data record. For example, you have The University of Notre Dame. You can set up an Alias or AKA table that points at that record....yet access it via 'ND' or 'Notre Dame' or 'Golden Domers' or 'Fighting Irish' or Fightin' Irish', etc. Notice that these aren't SOUNDEX searchers, this is a whole nother text entry. Here's what Ancestry.com said about a recent correction I requested......a GGGgrandfather was recorded as a FEMALE.....his name William provides us with a clue.... "We regret any difficulties you have experienced when searching for William J. Dennison. After reviewing the image mentioned, we have determined that the apparent error you reported is due to the original Census. We have left the genders as well as all other information as they appeared on the original documents. Because the enumerator wrote "F" for female on the original document we are unable to make any correction." They aren't set up for corrections to the 1870 census, or event annotated records.....but having alternative spellings pointing to the error would allow for a search on Mackleburg to return Mechlenburg-Schwering WITHOUT correcting the original census. RJ Samp RJ Samp
Unregistered(d)	Pot calling the kettle black	#4	[-]
Posts: 0 (04/15/04 13:16:31) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Mr. Samp, For someone who has spent so much time critisizing other people's work, one would think your own work must be exemplary. Not so. Your own gedcom has a father born in Pommern, Prussia, the mother born in Pomern, Prussia (szczecin, Poland) and the children born in Pommern, Preussen. West Preussen, Preusen and Westpreussen, Preussen. If you cannot find a correct and consistent way to list one city, county, state and country why are you demanding others do so? If all those "pointers" are so important to you, and it is so easy to do, create the program to do it and offer it to Ancestry and the LDS.

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